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"\ .'.'TTO/PflP'SWI

THE

COMMERCIAL POLICY

PITT AND PEEL

1785—1846.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

1847.

( f ^ *^

London : ftinted by William Clowib and Sons, Stamford Street.

( 3 )

'mw

CONTENTS.

Page
Introduction. Free-Trade Policy first promoted by Mr. Pitt

in 1785 .5

Opposed by Mr. Fox ; Suspended during the French Revolu-
tionary War; Renewed by Lord Liverpool's Government
in 1818 6

Ever since consistently followed up by leading Conservative
Statesmen ......... 7

Groundlessness of Charge now raade against those Statesmen
of deserting their Principles 10

Or of Pirating the Principles of the Whigs . . . .12

This Charge confuted by Mr. Canning in 1826 . . .14

By Mr. Disraeli in 1842 15

By Lord Melbourne in 1845 IJ

Sir R. Peel a cordial supporter of all Mr, Iluskisson's Free-
Trade Measures 19

Those Measures opposed by leading Whigs . . . .20

Violent attacks on their supporters by "Fettered Trade"
Party 22

Lord John Russell's Corn-Law Letter of 1822 . . . 25

Coalition of Whigs and Ultra Tories in 1830 ... 27

Reconsolidation of Conservative Party in 1834 . . .28

Not based on "Fettered Trade" principles, or support of
Corn Laws 30

Sir R. Peel's definition of Conservative Principles in 1838 . 32

Whig Premier's Corn-Law views in 1839 . . . .34

Whig Budget of 1841 37

B 2

^!^liaB^-—t

CONTENTS.

Pack

Altered views of Statesmen relative to the Corn-Laws between

1841 and 1846 ....••. 46

Lord Stanley's Canada Corn Bill of 1843 . . . .48

Sir R. Peel in 1841 adheres to his former views of Free-Trade
Policy '^^

Reserves Iiis right, as the state of che Country niiglit require,
to modify or abolish the Corn-Law 53

The latter course justified by the state of the Country in 1846 ."SS

Subsequent break up of Conservative Party not justified by
the Measures of 1846 •'»7

Conclusion.

1"*.

COMMERCIAL POLICY OF PITT AND PEEL.

1785—1846.

It is not the writer's intention to enter upon any
examination of the merits of the commercial measures
which in the course of last year obtained the sanction
of the legislature. His object is merely to lay before
that large and influential portion of the community to
whom those measures were distasteful, some consi-
derations which may induce them to pause before
taking up a position of irreconcilable hostility to men,
with whom they cordially acted during ten years of
opposition, carried on upon grounds altogether irre-
spective of any question affecting the removal of com-
mercial restrictions.

Not that the writer is indifferent to the success of
Sir Robert Peel's measures. No true follower of Mr.
Pitt can feel otherwise than anxious that they should
be crowned with success ; for they are founded upon
principles of commercial policy which were for the
first time attempted to be reduced to practice by that
statesman in 1785 — which were afterwards embodied
by him in the French commercial treaty of 1787 —
which were acted upon to a very considerable extent
by Mr. Huskisson during the administrations of Lord
Liverpool and Mr. Canning, the pupils and successors
of Mr. Pitt — and which, after having remained in

6 FREE TRADE POLICY OF MR, PITT OPPOSED BY MR. FOX.

abeyance under the Whigs from 1830 to 1841, were
more fully carried out by Sir Robert Peel from the
date of his accession to office in the latter of these
years.

That those principles are sound in theory has seldom
been disputed by any statesman of eminence since the
death of Mr. Fox, who was decidedly opposed to them.*
He led the opposition of the English farmer and manu-
facturer to the removal of restrictions from Irish com-
merce in 1785, and he headed the opposition to the
French treaty of 1787. From that period till the ter-
mination of the French revolutionary war the pre-
servation of the British empire from foreign aggression
occupied the attention of British statesmen, to the
exclusion of any questions affecting our commercial
relations. But upon the restoration of peace those
questions soon became the subject of discussion ; and
among the members of the Tory Government of that
day there was no difference of opinion as to the pro-
priety of introducing a more liberal system of com-
mercial policy than had before been iii operation.
Under the immediate direction of the late Lord Wal-
lace, of the Earl of Ripon, and of Mr. Huskisson,
measure after measure was introduced from 1818 to
1828, all of them based upon the principle of relieving
commerce of every restriction that could be dispensed
with consistently with the security of the revenue
and with what was due to the general interests of the
empire. The gradual removal of such restrictions,

ii&

* " We must in candour admit and lament that those maxims of policy
taught by Dr. Adam Smith, which bind nations together by the reciprocal
benefits of commerce, produced less effect on the minds of the Whig
leaders than on that of Mr. Pitt." — ' Article on Earls Grey and Spencer,'
Edinburgh Review for January, 1846, p. 241.

ADVOCATED BY TORY STATESMEN. 7

and a preference for direct to indirect taxation, was
tliroiif]jliout the policy of Lord Liverpool's administra-
tion: and by the time Mr. Huskisson's measures were
fully deveU)i)ed, all statesmen of eminence were satis-
fied that Free Trade princi[)les must sooner or later
become predominant. The only point on which any
difference of opinion prevailed was, as to the time
when those principles could be extensively applied
with safety. Whether that period had arrived in
1840 can only be determined by the result. The
measures of liiut very remarkable Session are now in
full operation, whether for good or for evil remains to
be proved ; and it seems to be almost universally ad-
mitted that they must, for some time at least, form the
basis of the commercial policy of the country. Any
discussion therefore of their merits, or of their pro-
bable effects, would be here out of place. For although
indications have from time to time been made of its
bein": the intention of a certain section of the Protec-
tionists, with Lord George Bentinck at their head, to
agitate for a repeal of those measures, the general
impression is that no such attempt will be made.
The projected plan of operations is said to have met
with no support from Lord Stanley, the only tried
statesman of the party. It has been openly disavowed
by the Duke of Rutland, by Sir Edward KnatchbuU,
and by other leading agriculturists ; and the result is,
that but a very small portion of the space of the daily
or periodical press is occupied with the consideration
either of the policy of the measures or the propriety
of their repeal.

Very different, however, is the course that has been
pursued with reference to that portion of the Con-
servative party who supported those measures, and to

UNREASONABLE CONDUCT OF

the character and conduct of tlie men who introduced
them. As tlie discussion of the merits and tendency
of the measures died away, very much in the same
proportion did the abuse of their authors and sup-
porters increase. The characters of those men as states-
men and legislators are not, it is said, to be judged
of by the result. Even if, upon receiving that fair
trial which all parties profess to be ready to give
them, the measures of 1846 should turn out to be
the most beneficial that ever were devised ; if in
the course of a few years the trade and commerce
and agriculture of the country should all arrive at a
hitherto unexampled state of prosperity ; and if by all
reasonable men that prosperity could be traced to the
Session of 1846, and to the financial policy of the late
Administration, still all this matters not, the pro-
moters of that policy are in every event to be
condemned, they are never again to be trusted,
but to be for ever cashiered from the service of
the public.

A portion of the Conservative press which long
after the passing of the Corn Law of 1842, of
Lord Stanley's Canada Corn Bill of 1843, and of
the commercial reforms of 1842, 1844, and 1845,
were loudest in their praises of these measures and of
the conduct and character of Sir Robert Peel, have
since become the most lavish of their abuse : and from
the date of his resignation in 1846 down to the meet-
ing of Parliament in 1847, no language was violent
enough for the expression of their detestation of the
man and their abhorrence of his conduct. The
policy even of measures which some of them aided in
carrying has lately been called in question. The ad-
ditional grant to Maynooth, for instance, in favour of

EXISTING PROTECTIONIST PAKTY.

which Lord Stanley and Lord George Bentinck voted,
and which the former introduced into the House of
Lords, was not long ago selected as a fit subject for
insinuating reflections against Sir Robert Peel * by a
Conservative newspaper which decidedly advocated
that measure in 1845. f Lord Lincoln's declaration
of opinion at Manchester upon the endowment of
the Irish Roman Catholic clergy was at once assumed
to be the opinion of Sir Robert Peel ; and although
Lord Stanley voted in the majority for the endow-
ment of the Irish priests in 1825, he is nc'vertheless
selected as a fit champion of Protestantism, while
Sir Robert Peel is held up to public execration as
the enemy of the Protestant faith simply because he
is suspected of entertaining similar opinions.

But this proscription from the public service cannot
in fairness be limited to Sir Robert Peel and the
members of his Government. It applies to every
Conservative in Parliament who voted for the mea-
sures, and to every Conservative out of Parliament
who was ready to support them. It is true, indeed,

* While these pages are passing through the press, Mr. Manners Sutton's
" Address to the Electors of Cambridge " has been circulated. The fol-
lowing extract from that document will suffice to show, on how little founda-
tion these opinions have been ascribed to Sir Robert Peel : —

" As respects Sir Robert Peel, I felt myself justified in communicating
with him in consc(|uence of the assertions and surmises of Mr. Campbell.
I was informed by Sir Robert Peel, and was authorized by him to state,
that he had fully ex|)ressed his opinions on the matter referred to by Mr.
Campbell, in the debate on the second reading of the Maynooth College
Bill, on ihe 18th of April, 1845: that these opinions were correctly re-
ported at the time ; that to these opinions, on again referring to them, he
now adheres without any qualification ; and that he has given no authority
to any person to make any (declaration on his behalf on the subject of
Roman Catholic endowment, c.r on iiiy other subject whatever.

t See Stanch.:i of January 18, 1847, as contrasted with same paper in
March, 1845.

CHARGE AGAINST CONSERVATIVE STATESMEN

that the * Quarterly Review,' in the number for
October, 1846, in effect admitted the propriety of
limiting this pvoscription to Sir Robert Peel and a
few of his more immediate adherents, and of allowing
the greater portion of tlie 112 to reunite with tlie
Protectionists, provided they would confess that they
had done wrong and would promise to behave better
for the future. But there is evidently little or no
chance of this arrangement taking place. Those
members of the Conservative party who sup])orted
the measures of 1846 will not, for they cannot in
fairness, submit to Sir Robert Peel being proscribed
alone. And it is plain that upon tlie very same
grounds on which sentence of proscription is pro-
nounced against him, must a similar sentence be pro-
nounced against all Conservatives who supported him.
A portion of the public press, which up to 1846 were
the steady adherents of the late Ministry, have ac-
cordingly found it necessary to include all in their
proscription. The Whigs were "the first for Free
Trade" was the cry, when, in anticipation of a general
election in the autumn of 1846, an atteinj)t was made,
in ignorance, real or pretended, of tlie true state of
the facts, to detach the Conservative Free-traders from
the party of Sir Robert Peel : " select the Whigs,"
they have on that score " the first claim " to your
su})port, — and somewhat similar recommendations are
being repeated, now th.it there are again rumours of
a speedy dissolution rf Parliament.

In giving this advice the Protectionist organs are
consistent. If Sir Robert Peel's conduct, and that of
the members of his Administration in 1846, was such as
to merit one tithe cf the abuse that has been heaped
upon them, it is very plain that the proscription from
public life cannot stop with them. Tiir fault could,

"\?«

OF DESERTING THEIR PRINCIPLES.

indeed, in no case easily admit of expiation. For what
are the grounds on which this proposed exclusion is
rested? The accusation brought against them is,
that they have betrayed their friends and party by
abandoning Conservative principles, and adopting
the Free Trade doctrines of the Whigs. The charge
is a serious one, and ought not to be entertained
except on evidence of tlie clearest description. It
may, however, confidently be asserted that no such
evidence has been or can be adduced. It is, on the
contrary, believed that a conclusive case may be mfvde
out in disproof of any such allegations. One might
have expected that the fact of so large a number
of Conservatives, distinguished as well for influence
as for independence of character, throughout the
country, having supported the measures of 1846,
would of itself have gone ffir to silence any doubts as
to the sincerity of the Ministers who introduced them.
One would have thought that the circumstance of the
Duke of Wellington appearing as a supporter of the
policy of 1846 should have afforded a conclusive
guarantee, not perhaps of its necessity, but certainly
that there was nothing treache-'ous or dishonourable
in the conduct of those by whom it was advocated,
and to whom he gpve the sanction of his support.

But it is not so. The matter has not been so viewed
in many most respectable quarters. The cliarge has
been so loudly and so generally asserted, and the im-
pression of there having been some dishonesty and
treachery at the bottom of the measures of 1846, has
taken such complete possession of the minds of a large
body of Cons(;rvatives, that the sagacity, the spotless
purity of character, and perfect independence of many
of the supporters of the late Ministry, is allowed to
weigli nothing in the balan^'c against these precon-

12 CHAUGE AGAINST CONSERVATIVE STATESMEN

ceived impressions.* The result of all this is, that mosl.
of the ultra Protectionists view with indifference, if
they do not actually recommend, a course of proceed-
ings which must infallibly lead to the permanent ex-
clusion from any share in the management of public
affairs, not only of all the late Ministers, but of almost
all those Conservative Peers and Commoners who con-
sidered it their duty to support their measures. It is
no light matter thus to endeavour to discredit the cha-
racter of public men, comprising some of the ablest
practical statesmen the country ever possessed. It
is, therefore, hoped that no candid person will with-
hold an impartial consideration from remarks tending
to show that in carrying out the measures of 1846
tlie Duke of Wellino-ton and Sir Robert Peel were
not adopting the policy of their opponents ; were not
abandoning Conservative principles ; that there was
nothing, in short, in their conduct to justify the with-
drawal of public confidence, or any permanent sepa-
ration between that portion of the Conservatives who
supported them, and the large body of Conservatives
who opposed them.

This charge of pirating the Free-trade principles of

* One circumstance on which this charge of dishonesty is mainly rested is,
tlie allegation that Sir Ilohert Peel was frightened into a change of opinion
by Lord John Russell's letter to the electors of London in November, 1845.
It is believed that the constant reiteration of this statement has had more
effect than any other connected with the repeal of the Corn Laws in
leading men favourably inclined towards the late Administration to doubt
their sincerity. A reference to dates will suffice to show ^hat the charge
is unfounded. That Lord John Kussell may have heard rumours of dif-
ferences in the Cabinet, and of the cause of these differences, before he
wrote his letter, is possible ; but it is utterly impossible that his letter can
have led to Sir Robert Peel's calling his Cabinet together to consider the
question: because the letter is dated Edinburgh, 22nd Nov. 1845;
whereas the meeting of the Cabinet at which Sir Robert Peel broached
his plan of opening the ports, with a view to the reconsideration of the
Corn Laws, was held three weeks before, viz. on the 1st of November.

OF PIRATING THE PRINCIPLES OF THE WHIGS. 13

the Whigs is not new. It was repeatedly brought
against Lord Liverpool's Government in 1826, till it
was satisfactorily answered by Mr. Canning. !t was
urged against Sir Robert Peel's Ministry in 1842,
and refuted by Mr. Disraeli. It was renewed in 1846
by the supporters of Lord George Bentinck, the pre-
tended pupil of Mr. Canning, and now the leader of
Mr. Disraeli.

It is to the credit of the Whigs that this charge did
not originate with them. It originated with a section
of the general supporters of the Government in 1826,
who professing to be followers of Mr. Pitt, but forget-
ting that he was the first promoter of the principles of
Free Trade, thought to damage the commercial policy
of Lord Liverpool's ministry by fathering it on the
Whig party, whose character had not then recovered
the shock it had sustained through the coalition of
Mr. Fox with Lord North forty years before. But
although the charge did not originate with the Whigs
in 1826, many of them were not slow to countenance
it in 1842 and 184G ; and the self-complacent manner
in which Lord John Russell has accepted the com-
pliments paid to him by Lord George Bentinck as a
consistent supporter of Free Trade, in contradistinction
to Sir Robert Peel, is not very creditable to the can-
dour of the present Prime Minister. He must know
full well that his career as a practical Free Trader was
unheard of until 1841. Under the pretext of better-
ing the revenue, the Administration of which he was
then a member attempted to make a partial and invi-
dious application of Free Trade principles. That
attempt was successfully resisted, as not calculated to
confer any general benefit, while it pressed most in-
juriously on particular interests, and as being in
reality not a bona fide well digested reform, but a

CHARGE CONFUTED BY MR. CANNING IN 182().

desperate effort to prop up " for awhile a tottering
Administration," * which had brought the country to
the verge of national bankruptcy.

To the charge brought against Lord Liverpool's
Government, that they had adopted the principles of
the Whigs, Mr. Canning made the following reply in
the debate on the effects of Mr. Huskisson's Free
Trade system on the silk manufacture, in February,
1826 :—

"Two objections have been stated to the course which his
Majesty's Ministers are pursuing, under the guidance of my
Right Honourable friend. We are charged with having
abandoned the principles of Mr. Pitt, and having bor-
rowed a leaf from the book of Whig policy. If the latter
accusation refers to the useful and honourable support whicli
we have received on questions of commerce from some of
those who are habitually our antagonists in politics, I have
only to admit the fact, and to declare the satisfaction which
I derive from it, God forbid. Sir, that I should withhold
due praise from those who, forgetting political animosities,
and the vulgar divisions of party, liave concurred with us
in attempting to do public good.

" But if it is meant to say that the commercial policy
which we recommend to the country is founded on the
principles of Whiggism, history proves tliat proposition to
be untrue. I mean neither praise nor blame of Whig or
Tory, in adverting to matters which passed long before tlic
political existence of the present generation ; but historically
speaking, I must say, that freedom of commerce has in
former times been the doctrine rather of Tories than of
Whigs. If I look back, for instance, to the transactions
between this country and France, the only commercial
treaty v/hich I can find, beside that which was signed by
me and my Right Honourable friend but the other day,
since the peace of Utrecht, is the convention of 1 7S6. With
respect to the treaty, the House need not be afraid that I am
now going to discuss the principles of the treaty of Utrecht.
But by whom was the convention of 1 78G proposed and sup-

•^

-,-«

* See Lord Stanley's Speech, June 4, 1841.

CHARGE CONFUTED BY MR. DISRAELI IN 1842.

ported? — By Mr. Pitt. By whom was it opposed? — By
Mr. Fox. I will not go into the arguments which might be
used on either side ; I enter not into the question who was
riffht or wronff. I mention the circumstance only to show
how easily facts are perverted for particular purposes of
vituperation. It is an ohl adage, that when a man wishes
to beat a dog, he has no difficulty in finding a stick : but
the stick in the present instance has been unfortunately
chosen."

The choice of the stick has been equally unfortunate
on the present occasion. The charge of plagiarism
can with as little justice be made either against Sir
Robert Peel or the leading members of his Administra-
tion. In proof of this it is scarcely necessary to do
more than mention that the Duke of Wellington, Lord
Ripon, Lord Lyndhurst, and Mr. Goulburn were in
office under Lord Liverpool when the attack thus
refuted by Mr. Canning was made on his Government
in 1826. So was Sir Robert Peel ; and of the in-
justice of the charge, as applied to him, no better
evidence can be adduced than that of Lord Melbourne
and Mr. Disraeli.

In the debate on the tariff in 1842, Mr. Disraeli is
reported in Hansard to have spoken as follows :*

" With reference to the accusation made on the other side
of the House, that the Right Honourable Bart, at tLo head
of the Government had repudiated principles when in op-
position which he had adopted when in office, — that
charge had been made without due examination of the facts
of the ( ic. He did not think that the Honourable Gentle-
men opposite had succeeded in making out their claim to
being peculiarly the originators of the principles of Free
Trade ; and as it was of great importance that the House
should have as correct a knowledge as possible as to the
pedigree of those particular dogmas, that gentlemen opposite
should not continue to consider that the country icas indebted to

* Hansard, 3rd Scrips, vol. Ixiii. p. 390.

CHARGE CONFUTED BY MR. DISR/VELI IN 1842.

themselves for the doctrines of Free Trade, or gentlemen on his own
side imagine that those doctrines were of such recent and
modern invention as was generally supposed, he miykt he
alloived to remind the House that it was Mr. Pitt who first pro-
mulgated them in 1 787."

Mr. Disraeli then goes on to show how, on that
occasion, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and the late Lord
Grey took a decided part against Mr. Pitt, whose
opinions on commerce were so far in advance of the
age, that not even one member of his own Govern-
ment in the House of Lords was willing or competent
to become their advocate ; and concludes by saying —

"The principles of Free Trade were developed — and not
by Whigs — fifty years ago ; and how was it that the Whig
party now came forward and contended that they were the
originators of these opinions ? But what was the conduct of
the Pitt party after the peace ? Was the party which origi-
nally brought Free Trade principles into notice at that period
false to those principles ? If that question were fairly ex-
amined, it would be found that exactly the reverse was the
case, and that on the very first possible occasion the Adminis-
tration of Lord Liverpool showed itself in advance of the age
upon the question of a greater freedom of trade. Before Mr.
Huskisson exercised his great and beneficial influence on
the commercial legislation of this country, Mr. Wallace and
Mr. Robinson had carried a series of measures founded on
the true principles of commerce, and Mr. Huskisson ""nly
prosecuted their system ; and in what the Right Honourable
Bart, now proposed, it was manifest that he was doing
neither more nor less than carrying into effect principles
which originated with Mr. Pitt. The conduct pursued by
the Right Honourable Bart, was in exact harmony, in per-
fect consistency, with the principles in refererce to Free
Trade laid down by Mr. Pitt, and his reason for saying thus
much, was to refute the accusations which had been brought against
the present Government, that in order to get into, and being in,
to keep office, they had changed their opinions on these subjects."

Still more emphatic, and, if possible, still more im-

CHARGE CONFUTED BY LOUD MELBOURNE IN 1845. 17

! on
and
I on
-^nly

partial, is the declaration of Lord Melbourne, who, in
speaking of Sir Robert Peel's commercial policy at the
dinner of the Fishmongers' Company in August,
1845, said,

" Wc all know that thcbO very measures have been pro-
ductive, in both Houses of Parliament, of much difference of
opinion ; and they have been the cause of much bitter feel-
ing, not to say malignant invective, being levelled against
the Right Honourable Baronet at the head of Her Majesty's
Government, upon the notion of some supposed inconsistency
of these measures with his former opinions and conduct.
Placed as I have been by circumstances in the position of an
antagonist and competitor to that Right Honourable Baronet,
it is natural I should look into and examine his conduct, not
with hostile jealousy, or any hostile feeling, but with care
and anxiety. It is natural that I should be anxious to learn
what his conduct has been, what have been his measures,
and what liavc been the principles upon which they have
been founded, and what the language in which he has
argued and enforced these prnciples. I have made such
inquiry and examination, and I think myself bound to state
as the result of it, that I know nothing in the antecedent
conduct of the Right Honourable Baronet, which should, in
point of consistency, preclude him from bringing forward
either the measures which he has brought forward, or any
other measures in the same direction which he may convince
his understanding or persuade his conscience would be both
expedient and conducive to the benefit and advantage of his
country. Thus much I have thought it my duty to say. 1
had intended to have said it in Parliament, but I have
never been able to find an opportunity of doing so."

This declaration of opinion was highly creditable to
Lord Melbourne, and it is not surprising he should
have made it. Whatever faults he may have had as
a Minister, it never could with justice be said that to
them he added that of dealing unfairly with the cha-
racter of his political opponents. He must have

18 CHARGE CONFUTED BY LORD MELBOURNE IN 1845.

[. .

known that his Administration had lost the confidence
of Parliament and of the country long before the
Session of 1841 ; that he had on that account resigned
office in 1839, the very year in which he made the
celebrated declaration, that to repeal the Corn Laws
would be " the wildest and maddest scheme that ever
entered into the mind of man ;" he must have remem-
bered that in January, 1840, he had narrowly escaped
defeat upon a motion of want of confidence, based
upon grounds altogether distinct from any question
affecting the Corn Laws, for at that time his Cabinet
had proposed no alteration of those laws ; and he knew
that the motion of want of confidence made in 1841
was founded upon the incapacity of his Government,
its inability to carr}^ its measures, the dcfiilcation it
had brought about in the revenue, and the unsatis-
factory state of its relations with foreign powers. But
above all, he knew that opposition to the removal of
commercial restrictions was no part of the political
creed of those who were then opposed to him.

It seems now to be almost forgotten that Lord Mel-
bourne held office under Mr. Canning in 1827, along
with Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Ripon ; and that he
also held office under the Duke of Wellington, in 1828,
with Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Goulburn, and Lord Aber-
deen. He had thus the best possible opportunities of
knowing the opinion of his leading opponents in
1841, on the subject of commercial freedom. He had
witnessed the part taken by many of them, and in
particular by Sir Robert Peel, in supporting Mr.
Huskisson ; and he knew that that was no lukewarm
part. So early as the year 1824, when the appli-
cation of the principles of Free Trade was by no means
popular, but, on the contrary, viewed with the utmost

SIR ROBERT PEEL ON FREE TRADE IN 1824.

■^

dread even by the manufacturing interests of the
country ; and when the present Lord Dcnman, Mr.
EHice, Mr. Baring, now Lord Ashburton, and other
leading Wiiigs, although approving of the theory of
Free Trade, were throwing decided obstacles in the way
of its practical application, Mr. Canning and Mr.
Peel are found urging upon the House of Commons
the necessity of disregarding the partial and interested
opposition, and of gradually enforcing those principles
of trade, the theory of which they professed to approve
of. On the 5th of March, 1824, Sir Robert Peel is
reported to have concluded a speech on a debate raised
by Mr. Baring on the subject of the admission of
French silks, with the following pointed observa-
tions : —

"The Honourable Gentleman has asked wlio was to be
considered the sponsor of tliis plan ? No individual cer-
tainly, but those general principles which the Honourable
Gentleman had himself invariably advocated. They were
the sponsors, — and higher authority than any advice from
parties interested in the silk manufacture. After declaiming
so often a.id so hnr/ in favour of the principles of Free Trade, let
the House consider in what a lir/Jd it %coidd stand before Europe^
if it did not attempt, instead of aiming at temporary popidarity^
to establish sound principles of commercial policy. How tcould
those principles be p7'ejudiced, if, knowing them to be irrefragable^
Parliament, not having the courage to encounter difficulties^ loere
to yield to the fears of the timid or the representations of the
interested." *

From that period down to his removal from office
in 1830, Sir Robert Peel was a party to every mea-
sure carried through Parliament to effect the removal
of commercial restrictions. It is now well known that
he, as Secretary of State for the Home Department,

* See Hansard, New Scries, vol, x. p. 740. '

SIR ROBERT PEEL A SUPPORTER OF ALL

Wiis intrusted with the preparation of tlie Kinf>'s Speech
iu 1825. He made it liis boast that he liad been so,
and also that he cordially approved of all Mr. lliis-
kisson's Free Trade measures, both before and after
the dissolution in 1841. In the speech of 18*25 Par-
liament was congratulated on the advantaoes that had
been derived " from the relief recently given to com-
merce by the removal of inconvenient restrictions ;"
and is recommended "to persevere in the removal of
similar restrictions." That recommendation was acted
upon. The relief alluded to was that att'orded by the
Silk Trade measures of Mr. Huskisson, passed in 1824;
and which were followed up accordingly in 1825, by
other similar changes in our commercial S3^stem. It
was in that session of Parliament that Mr. Huskisson
made his two very remarkable speeches on foreign
and colonial commercial policy, announcing a general
revision of the revenue laws. These changes met with
some opposition at the time ; but in 182G and 1827
they were made the groundwork of the most uimiea-
sured vituperation and abuse of Mr. Huskisson and
all who were associated with him in their introduc-
tion. The supporters of " Fettered Trade " — as Mr.
Huskisson described the opponents of his policy — de-
nounced him in language even more violent than that
now applied by the Protectionists to Sir Robert Peel.
The debate in 1826, on Mr. Ellice's motion relative to
the effects of the Free Trade system on the silk manu-
facture, was seized upon as a fit opportunity for a
general attack on the new commercial regulations and
their authors. That attack called forth Mr. Canning's
refutation of the charge that the Government were bor-
rowing the principles of the Whigs ; and also a bril-
liant defence of himself, his colleagues, and Mr.

Mil. HUSKISSON'S FUEE-TllADE MEASURES

...ib

Huskisson in particular, from " the vulgar topics of
ribald invective" with which they had been assailed
by a sect " who think that all advances towards im-
provement are retrogradations towards Jacobinism ;
and that under no possible circumstances can an honest
man endeavour to keep his country upon a line with
the progress of political knowledge, and to adapt its
course to the varying circumstances of the world,"
without branding it as an " indication of mischievous
intentions — as evidence of a design to sap the founda-
tions of the greatness of his country."*

The expressions which led to this defence exceeded,
if possible, anything applied to the late Government
and their supporters. In opposing the proposed in-
quiry, Mr. Huskisson " was represented as invariably
indifferent to the sufferings of those on whose behalf
it was called forth," and likened to " a hard-hearted
metaphysician, exceeding the devil in point of malig-
nity ;" and in the following year he found it neces-
sary to allude, in his speech on the commercial and
shipping interests, to charges exactly similar in kind
and in degree to those now repeated, at an interval
of twenty years, against the very men who were con-
joined with him in 1826. He was again, in May,
1 827, run down as a '' wild theorist ;" charged with
" palming upon the house and the country measures of
great public importance, under false pretences ;"t with
being "guilty of gross political fraud ; with attempting
to support his exaggerated statements, ** and to deceive
the public by returns purposelypre pared to lead to
false conclusions.":!:

* Vide Huskisson's Speeches, vol. ii. p. 527.
t Ibid., vol. iii. j). 80.
I I/)id, p. 93.

VIOLENT ATTACKS ON MR. IIUSKISSON

In answer to these attacks, Mr. Huskisson adopted
pretty much the same course as that followed last
year by Sir R. Peel. He would not condescend " to
bandy about personalities with his opponents in the
House of Commons ;" and with reference to the '* ca-
lumnies that were heaped" upon him personally out of
doors, he indignantly replied,

'* Let not the hireling authors of those calumnies suppose
that I am going to retort upon them the low, vulgar abuse
which they have attempted to cast upon me. The only
punishment which they shall receive at my hands is, to
show them that their venom is fallen innocuous upon me ;
that I am not infected by it; and that, however unjustly
attacked, I feel too much respect for this House — I might
add, too much self-respect — to resort to such base engines in
my defence."*

The venom has, indeed, fallen innocuous upon him.
At the distance of twenty years, the man who was
the subject of those attacks is now almost universally
admitted to have been one of the ablest and most con-
scientious practical statesmen that ever held office in
this country. But although the venom has thus
fallen innocuous upon him, and the calumnies and
their authors are weU nigh forgotten, the spirit that
dictated the attacks survives. The sect so graphi-
cally described by Mr. Canning is not without its
representatives in the present day, who have shown
themselves no unworthy successors of the " Fettered
Trade " party of 1826. That the representatives of
that party should have indulged in the most violent
abuse of a series of commercial measures based upon
tiie same principles as those which called forth the

* Vide Uuskisson's Speeches, vol. iii. p. 84.

UY "FETTEKED TllAPE" PAUTY.

)pted
last
"to
the
ca-
nt of

culunmios of 18*26, is not to bo wondered at ; but it
is most surprising that to charges similar to those
made against Mr. Iluskisson and his colleagues
should be added that of inconsistency, of tleserting
the jn'iueiples of a lifetime, and borrowing those of
the Wiiigs ; and that this should be reiterated day
after day, and almost without contradiction, against
the Duke of Wellington, Lord Ripon, Lord Lynd-
hurst, Sir Robert Peel, and Mr. Cioulburn, some of
whom sat in the same Oabinet with Mr. Huskisson in
18*26, and all of whom were in office at the time,
simply because, from 1841 to 1846, they have been
carrying into more full operation those principles of
commercial policy, which they had been j)arties to the
aj)plication of during Lord Liverpool's Administration.
If any more conclusive evidence were required of
the liberal views entertained by Sir Robert Peel at that
period on tlu; subject of commerce, and of his being more
justly entitled tlian any other living statesman to follow
up a Free 'iVade policy, it is to be found in the repeated
declarations of Mr. Huskisson himself. When taunted
with inconsistency, in 1828, for joining the Duke
of Wellington's Administration, he defended himself
mainly on the ground of the similarity of opinion be-
tween Sir Robert Peel and himself on the subject of
commercial freedom ; and when the attempt was made
to single him out, with one or two of his immediate
friends, and to run them down as supporters of an
unsound system of policy, he quoted the Duke of
Wellington's declaration, that he held himself respon-
sible for the measures introduced by Mr. Huskisson
under Lord Liverpool's Government, and added, —

" Having taken the liberty to re^d these words, so expres-
sive of the noble Duke's sentiments, 1 would wish those

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND SIR R. PEEL.

who are ever miscliievously endeavouring to identify him
with their own contracted views and prejudices, to bear
them in their recollection, and to mitigate so'-aewhat of that
blundering zeal, under the impulse of which, .<.n their anxiety
to asperse the character of Mr. Canning, they do not perceive
that they arc calling in question the sincerity and good faith
of the noble Duke."*

Witli what truth might not these words be applied
to those wlio are now endeavouring to separate Sir
Robert Peel from t' e same noble Duke. In their de-
termination to run down, and if possible irretrievably
damage, the character of tlie one, they seem wilfully
blind to the fact that in every imputation of insin-
cerity, in every charge of inconsistency, ">nade against
the one, they are directly calling in question the honesty
and good faith of the other.

On the occasion of Mr. Huskisson's retirement from
office in 1828, he made another and a similar declara-
tion of strict and continued unison of opinion and of
principles between himself and Sir Robert Peel, on all
(piestions of foreign and commercial policy ; and still
later, in April, 1829, he repeated the same sentiments
after he had ceased to be politically connected with
the Duke of Wellington. He stated, in the outsei of
liis speech on the silk trade, in reply to Mr. Sadler,
the recently elected champion of the " Fettered Trade "
party, that he had felt it his duty to attend in the
House to support the Government in any further
reiterations it might be necessary to make, in order to
confirm and perfect the measures of 1824 and 1825,
the Ministry having declared tlieir intention to perse-
vere with those measures.!

* Huskisson's Speeches, vol. >ii. p. 216.
t lOid., vol. lii. p. 411,421.

LOUD J. RUSSELL'S CORN-LAW LETTER OF 1822. 25

The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel having
thus prior to the year 1830 been parties to the intro-
duction of a liberal system of foreign trade, and cordial
supporters of all Mr. Huskisson's Free Trade measures,
it may be asked, what was Lord John Russell about
during all this time, who is now represented as an old,
steady, consistent Free-trader, while Sir Robert Peel
is reproached as a renegade and deserter of his former
principles, and a convert to those of the Whigs ?
During the latter part of the above period, Lord John
may be found giving an occasional vote, or even now
and then saying a few words, in favour of the measures
of the Government ; but during the earlier period he
appears to have been otherwise employed. He had
not very long before (viz., in 1819) delivered his
speech in defence of the British Constitution, and of
those nomination boroughs which in 1830 he helped
to destroy. And whib Mr. Canning, Mr. Huskisson,
and Sir Robert Peel were urging on an at first rather
reluctant House of Commons the necessity of acting
up to their Free Trade principles, and even of adopt-
ing a modification of the Corn Law of 1815, Lord John
is buckling on his armour as an agriculturist, and
denouncing; the ministers, and among them Sir Robert
Peel, as

" About to give up the question of trade in corn " to a
party amongst us, "however distinguished in what is called
the science (<f political economy, who wish to substitute the
corn of Poland and Russia for our own. Their principle is,
that you ought always to buy where you can buy cheapest.
They repeat with emphasis tliat the nation pays a tax of
2,.50'^,000/. yearly to the growers of corn. They count as
noth^ .Jig the value to the country of a hardy race of farmers
and labourers. Tliey care not for tlie dillerence between
an agricultural and a manui'acturing population in all that

POSITION OF STATESMAN IN 1830.

concerns morals, order, n-^tional strength, and national tran-
quillity. Wealth is the only object of their speculation ;
nor do they much consider the two or three millions of
people who may be reduced to utter beggary in the course
of their operation^:. This they call di/erting capital into
another channel. Their reasonings lie so much in abstriict
terms, their speculations deal so much by the gross, tliat
they have the same insensibility about the suflerings of a
people that a general has respecting the loss of men wearied
by his operations."*

Such being the relative position of these statesmen
prior to 1830, there can be no doubt that the claims
of Sir Robert Peel to be the follower up of a Free Trade
policy were at that time far superior to those of Lord
John Russell : and unless it can be shown that at
some future period Sir Robert Peel repudiated the
principles he had enforced as the colleague of Mr.
Huskisson, there can be as little doubt that he was
quite free, and even bound in consistency to act upon
them in 1841, when his restoration to power gave
him the opportunity of doing so with advantage to
the commerce of the countrv.

A glance at the i)arliamenta."y history of the ten
years during wdiich the \\ liigs were in office will s .ow
that neither Sir Robert Peel nor any one of his former
colleagues ever did repudiate those princi[)les — that
tliey were known to entertain them when he was
selected as the leader of the Conservative opposition
— that there could therefore be no dereliction of prin-
ciple in bringing about, as the varying circumstances
o^ the age required, a more extensive application of

* Huntingdon Letter, 1822. All this indignation, which would bo
worthy of the British Lion of the present day, was Ibundcd on the eircum-
stancc that certain Resolutions had been or were to be proposed by Mr.
Huskisson with a view to modify the Corn Law of 1815.

COALITION OF WHIGS AND TORIES IN 1830.

the same system of policy, which had been acted upon
to a great extent, and amid much vituperation and
abuse, by Lord Liverpool's Government nearly ' wenty
years before.

Driven from power by a coalition of Whigs and
ultra Tories, very similar to that which effected tlieir
removal in 1846, the Duke of Wellington and Sir
Robert Peel were deprived of the opportunity of fol-
lowing up and perfecting in 1830 the commercial
measures then in operation, and of carrying out the
system of practical and strictly economical reform
upon which they had acted from the time they were
first intrusted with the administration of affairs. Dur-
ing the Government of Earl Grey however, no mea-
sure of practical reform met with any opposition from
either the Duke or Sir Robert Peel. Organic changes
in the Constitution of the country they did oppose ;
but every measure tending to lessen monopolies — the
opening of the China trade, for instance — met with
their cordial support.

Towards the summer of 1834, however, the then
Opposition were forced to adopt a difierent course ;
and by the end of thuc } .^ar the small band of men
professing Conservative principles who had been re-
turned to the first Reformed Parliament, and who con-
sisted partly of ultra Tories and partly of politicians
of the Pitt and Canning school, received a sudden and
powerful reinforcement. And here the important
question occurs. What led to this reinforcement ?
Was it any attempt on the part of the Whigs to
remove commercial restrictions ? No such attempt
had been made. Was it any proposal to alter the
Corn Laws ? Earl Grey and Lord Melbourne were
known to be decided supporters of the then existing

RECONSOLIDATION OF CONSERVATIVE

Corn Laws ; and Lord Althorp, as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, had that very year negatived Mr. Hume's
proposition for a fixed duty on corn. It was nothing
connected with Corn Laws or commercial restrictions,
therefore, which led to the breaking up of the Grey
Administration, and the reinforcement of the Con-
servatives at the general election in 1834. But it
was the 147t.h clause of the Irish Tithe Bill. That
clause contained the germ of the Appropriation Clause.
It was looked upon as a direct attack upon the pro-
perty of the Church ; and on that account Lord Stan-
ley, Sir James Graham, Lord Ripon, and the Duke of
Richmond detached themselves from the Whigs. It
was the Lichfield House compact between Mr. O'Con-
nell and the Whigs to turn out Sir Robert Peel, and
the fruit of that compact, Lord John Russell's Appro-
priation Clause and his subsequent return to power,
that led to Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham cor-
dially joining Sir Robert Peel. And it was the indif-
ference, or rather the favour, with which Lord John
Russell and Lord Melbourne viewed the attacks made
by many of their supporters on the House of Peers,
for refusing to accede to the Appropriation Clause and
other obnoxious Whig measures, with their appoint-
ment to office of men who were in ^'-^vour of Vote by
Ballot and of the expulsion of the Bishops from
the House of Lords, and not averse in other respects
to reforming that body, which led to the complete
union of Lord Stanley, Sir Robert Peel, Sir James
Graham, and their respective followers, in 1836,
1837, and 1838, in the one House of Parhamen^ :
and of the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Rich-
mond, the Earl of Ripon, and Lord Lyndhurst, and
their followers, in the other. By tlie beginning of

PARTY IN 1834.

1838 the Conservative party was firmly organized,
with Sir Robert Peel at their head ; and neither theu
nor for several years afterwards had the Whig Govern-
ment given their sanction to any measure for altering
the Corn Laws, or for the removal otherwise of com-
mercial restrictions. On the contrary, in the year
1839, Lord Melbourne, the head of that Government,
made his celebrated declaration in support of those
Corn Laws ; and in 1840 the Government opposed o
a man Mr. E wart's motion for an equalization of the
sugar duties, which they afterwards adopted as their
own in the spring of 1841.

It is plain, therefore, that a rigid adherence to the
Corn Law of 1828 and to the commercial regulations
in existence when the Conservative party was or-
ganized, did not form any part of its creed, still less
the basis of its policy. It was not any attempt to
alter those laws that led to its formation. The Con-
servative party was formed to defend the Protestant
Church from spoliation, and to resist organic changes
in the Constitution of the country ; and it reckoned
among its leading members many who were decided
friends to all practical and economical reforms, and
favourable to the utmost possible relaxation of com-
mercial restrictions that was consistent with the safety
of the revenue. Sir Robert Peel, the Free Trade
coadjutor of Mr. Huskisson, was selected as the Con-
servative leader in the one House, and the Duke of
Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, and the Earl of Ripon,
also colleagues and supporters of Mr. Huskisson, led
this party in the other.

It cannot be pretended that either Sir Rol/crt Peel
or the Duke of Wellington, when thus selected as the
leaders of the Opposition, had made any retractation

Ill

30 NOT BASED ON "FETTERED TRADE" PRINCIPLES

X''

of the sentiments formerly entertained by them on
commercial policy and economical reform. They
were, on the contrary, always distrusted on these
points by a certain small section of the Conservatives.
Their views were considered too liberal. Tljt address
issued to the electors of Tarn worth bv Sir Robert Peel,
on his return from Rome in 1834, was distasteful to
many ultra Tories on the one hand, and held to be a
sort of electioneering hoax by many Radicals on the
other. But the opinions expressed in that address
were adhered to. From that period the Duke of
Wellington and Sir Robert Peel, while they resisted
" the alienation of Church property in any part of the
United Kingdom from strictly ecclesiastical purposes,"*
showed by their conduct, both in office and in opposi-
tion, that the liberal course of policy announced on
their taking office in 1834 would be followed up. So
far from there having been any repudiation of the
opinions entertained by them on those subjects on
which they are now said to have changed their creeds,
viz. currency, direct taxation, and commercial free-
dom, their conduct with reference to them when
formerly in power was referred to as conclusive proof
that they were not behind, but rather before the spirit
of the age, and that no necessary practical reform
would be met by any opposition on their part. And,
disguise it as their opponents may, there can be no
doubt that the belief that such were the opinions of
the Duka of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and their
immediate supporters, attracted many to the Conser-
vative ranks, who, but for that belief, never would have
joined them.

* Vide ' Letter to the Electors of Tamworth,' published by Roake and
Varty, p. 12.

OR SUPPORT OP CORN LAWS.

The speecli delivered by Sir Bobert Peel at the
dinner given to him in Glasgow, in January, 1837,
one of the most important political demonstrations on
record, may fairly be referred to as an exposition of
the principles upon which the Conservative party
were then held to be organized. No candid man,
reading the report of the proceedings on that occasion,
can fail to come to the conclusion that it was not any
apprehension of the Whig ministry adopting a Free
Trade or anti-Corn-Law policy that led to that vast
assemblage. The Corn Laws were not even made the
subject-matter of a toast. The 3500 men who met there,
met to record their determination, as Sir Robert Peel
expressed it, " To support the national establishments
which connected Protestantism with the State in the
three countries ;" and " To support in its full in-
tegrity the authority of the House of Lords ;" which
establishments, and which authority, were then both
endangered, owing to the time-serving conduct of the
Whigs. And one main ground on which the duty of
maintaining the integrity and independence of the
House of Lords was enforced upon the meeting was,
the readiness with which t'lat House had acceded to
all measures of practical reform, and among these to
the changes whicli had taken place in the commercial
policy of the country before the passing of the Reform
Bill.

But a still more distinct definition of Conservative
principles will be found in the speech of Sir Robert
Peel at the dinner given to him in May, 1838, by 313
members of the House of Commons, " representing,"
as stated in the 'Times' of that period, "four-fifths of
tlie property, intelligence, and public virtue to be
foimd among tlie Commons of the United Kingdom,

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S DEFINITION OF

bringing together the remotest extremities of the
realm, to unite them in principle and purpose as one
man for the maintenance of our national institutions,
and of a determined war upon a band of mercenary
traitors who have assaulted them — such a spectacle
as such a meeting exhibits was never seen before."*'
Sir Robert Peel's health was proposed by the present
Duke of Buckingham, who, in allusion to that states-
man's conduct when formerly in office, and to his
expected return to power ere long, spoke of " the
liberal, statesmanlike measures he had prepared as
Minister of the late King ;" and boasted that these
" would be carried into effect, and render him one of
the most popular', as he teas the most hom^st and lest of
ministers that ever ruled this country." In returning
thanks. Sir Robert Peel concluded his speech with the
following pertinent remarks: —

" If asked What do you mean by Conservative prin-
ciples ? — as we are sometimes taunted with giving a vague
and unsatisfactory description of them, I would in conclusion
briefly state the meaning I attach t > them. By Conserva-
tive principles, then, I mean, and I believe you mean, the
maintenance of the prerogative of the Monarch, the mainte-
nance of the just powers and attributes of Queen, Lords, and
Commons of the country, and the determination to resist
every encroachment which can curtail the just rights and
settled privileges of one or other of those tliree branches of
the Constitution. By Conservative principles we mean,
that co-exist' nt with the equality of civil rights and privi-
leges, there shall be an Established Religion, paid and
encouraged by the State, and that the Established Religion
shall maintain the doctrines of the Protestant Reformed Faith.
By Conservative principles we mean, a steady resistance to
every project for the alienation of Church property from

* Vidn ' Times' of May I4tli, 18.38.

^: .i

CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES IN 1838.

strictly spiritual purposes. We do not mean to raise an
unnecessary cry to serve a political end, that the Church is
in danger ; but we do put it to every reasonable man to say
whether those proposals do not endanger the Church, which,
if carried into elfect, would, in Ireland, alienate from the
Establishment a certain proportion of her property in viola-
tion of binding compacts and the most solemn assurances,
and devote it to the purposes of education, expressly ex-
cluding instruction in the main principles and precepts of
the Protestant Religion. We do put it to every reasonable
man to say whether, although their property be improved,
if concurrently the Bishops in England should be made
stipendiaries of the State, the Churcli could be free from
danger, its own revenues being applied to relieve property
from a burden to which it has been immemorially subject,
******* }^^^ ^]j^ ^g|^^ y tijQge lyfQ measures

were passed, whether they would not greatly endanger the
maintenance of the Establishment in both countries ? By Con-
servative principles we mean, the rescuing from threatened
danger our Protestant Establishments. Nay, more, we mean
the infliction, if we can, of 'a heavy blow and a great dis-
couragement' upon those principles which are antagonist to
the establishment of the l^rotestant Faith in these realms.
By Conservative principles we mean, the maintenance of our
settled institutions in Church and State; and we mean also
the preservation and defence of that combination of law, of
institutions, of usages, of habits and manners, which have
contributed to mould and form the character of Englishmen,
and which have enabled this country, in the contentions and
fearful rivalry of war, to extort the admiration of her
enemies, and in the equally glorious career of peaceful
industry, of commercial enterprise, of mechanical skill, of
social improvement, have endeared the name of England and
of Englishmen in every country of the world, to those who
seek for the estal)lishment of liberty without licence, and
look to the maintenance of that pure form of religion which
is at once the consolation of the virtuou.« man and the best
guarantee which human institutions can afford to civil and
religious liberty."

This exposition of the meaiiino- of Conservative

WHIG PUEMIER'S COKN-I-AW

principles was received witli acclamation at the time ;
and, coupled with what took ])lace in Glasgow the
year before, proves beyond all (piestion that the Con-
servative opposition was organized upon grounds
altogether unconnected with the maintenance of
commercial restrictions.* In 183i), the year in whicli
l^ord Melliourne declared that to repeal the Corn Laws
would be madness, so vigorous was the opposition to
In's Government on the Bill to annihilate the Consti-
tution of Jamaica, that the Ministry resign(>d. Re-
stored to ])Ower by the IJedchamber plot, they were
sulyected to the withering attacks of Lord Lyndhurst
and Lord Brouoham at the close of the Session of
1839. In the speech of Lord Lyndhurst, which was
circulated in thousands through the country, the con-
duct of the Government was passed in review with
reference to all those measures by means of which
they had rendered themselves deserving of public
reprobation, as incapable " of conducting the affairs of
this mighty empire in a manner suitable to its wants
and necessities." But the Corn Laws were not
alluded to by Lord Lyndhurst. No alteration of
those laws had up to that time been })ro})osed : and
yet such was the effect produced by that speech out
of doors, that from 1839 the days of the ministry
were considered doomed ; and in January, 1840, a

* I'lic circumstance that Sir R. Peel and most of the members of liis
administration supported the Maynootli grant, cannot be said by tiicir pre-
sent opponents to amount to any departure from the above exposition.
The education of the Roman Catiiolic clergy was a favourite scheme of
Mr. Pitt ; and Sir R. Peel, when in opposition, voted for tlie continuance
of the grant, while many of his habitual supporters op|)oscd it. The addi-
tion made to it in 1845 was, as has been shown, cordially approved of i)y
many who are still lauded as true to Conservative principles ; and that by
Protectionist journals, which advocated the Maynooth grant in 1845 as
calculated to load to the Reformation of Ireland.

VIEWS IN 1 «,'»{).

:i5

motion was made to remove tlicm from power. It
was lost by a very narrow majority. But from that
date it was plain that on the very first appeal to the
electors the Conservative Opposition would cliange
places with the Government and their supporters, and
that Sir Robert Peel would be Minister of Enghuid.

Had this happened in 1840, could it for a moment
have been maintained that he and his colleagues
would have been precluded, on the score of consist-
ency, from following- uj) and {)erfecting, as the cir-
cumstances of the country required it, that system of
commercial policy to which they had been parties
twenty years before ? or that they were pledged to
the then existing Corn Laws, and to oppose any
modification of these laws, rendered necessary in
their opinion " to keep the country on a line with the
progress of political knowledge, and to adapt its
course to the varying circumstances of the world?"
It is scarcely pretended, even by the bitterest oppo-
nents of Sir Robert Peel, that in 1840 there was any-
thing in their antecedent conduct which could have
precluded the members of the Peel Ministry, any
more than Lord John Russell and his adherents,
"from bringing forward," to use Lord Melbourne's
words of 1845, " either the measures which they did
bring forward, or any other measures in the same
direction, which they might convince their under-
standing or persuade their consciences would be both
expedient and conducive to the benefit of the country."

And if such was the case in 1840, if Sir Robert
Peel and his colleagues would have been at liberty
had he remained in power in 1835, or formed a
(Government in 1839, to introduce any measures of
commercial freedom which might appear to them

1) 2

SIR H. PEEL UNFETTERED.

necessary to follow out Mr. Huskisson's plans, and to
adapt the comTnerce of the country to the prof^ress of
political events, it does seem somewhat absurd to
charge them with treachery and dishonesty simply
because at a period when the circumstances of the
country imperatively required, and that by universal
admission, some change in our commercial regula-
tions, they considered it their duty to recommend a
very extensive application of the principles of Free
Trade.

But it is said — and here, in one point of view, lies the
substance of the charge — that things had very much
changed in 1841. That even granting Sir Robert
Peel and those of his colleagues who had been asso-
ciated with him prior to 1830, to have been at liberty
in 1840 to introduce great commercial and financial
reforms, such a course was no longer open to them in
1841. In short, that Lord Melbourne's administration
having been defeated upon a question of Free Trade,
and the general election having been allowed to ])ro-
ceed upon the understanding that Sir Robert Peel and
his leading political supporters were decidedly opposed
to the removal of commercial restrictions, and to any
alteration of the Corn Laws then in operation, all Con-
servatives were from that time precluded from follow-
ing out a Free Trade policy.

Now the answer to this objection is a simple denial
of the existence of any such understanding. And in
proof of this it may seem almost superfluous to do
more than refer to the speeches of Lord Melbourne
and Mr. Disraeli, quoted in the preceding pages. It
is not easy to figure two more impartial witnesses.
The opinions of an ultra-Protectionist on the one
hand, and on the otlier of the Minister whom Sir

WHIG UUDGICT OF I«41.

Kobcrt PtH'l was instrumental in r(;movin<:jfrom power,
should be conclusive, at least on the j^uneral question
of Free Trade, with every one not blinded by prejudice
and determined to shut his eyes to the truth. But it
is of importance to show that these opinions are fully
borne out by what took place in 1841.

It cannot be disputed that the budget of 1841 was
what led to the defeat and final overthrow of Lord
Melbourne's Administration : but it was by no means
tlie cause of that defeat. The attempt of an incapable
and powerless Government, through whose misnumagc-
ment every interest in the country had been paralyzed,
thus to tamper with so delicate a matter as the com-
mercial policy of a great commercial country, did
unrpiestionably fill the cup of public indignation to
overflowing: but that cup had been filled to the brim
long before the budget of 1841. By the beginning
of that year the Administration was in a most pitiable
position. From the date of their return to oflfice by
means of the Bedchamber plot of 1839, they were
totally powerless. They escaped defeat on -i motion
of want of confidence in January, 1840, by the small
majority of ten. In the course of that same Session of
Parliament they were night after night left in minori-
ties on questions of vital importance ; but they still
clung to office with unexampled tenacity. By the
beginning of 1841 they had reduced the finances of
the country to a very deplorable condition, and they
knew full well that they had lost the confidence, if not
of Parliament, at all events of the overwhelming ma-
jority of the people. It was in these circumstances
when, as Lord Stanley said,* they saw " not county

* Vide Lord Stanley's Speech, May 12, 1S41.

WHIG BUDGET OF 1841.

if
i 'i

I'l ' I

by county, but burgli by })urgli5 their holu upon the
country gTiichially slip})ing' away f ^m them ; when
tho common consent of the country proclaimed that
tliey could no longer iiold the rc'ns cF office, as they
had long ceased to hold the reins of power ; that they
produced their crude aad ill-digested scheme involving
the most extensive financial chaugcs :" . . . " and this
with tlie full conviction that it was impossible they
would be able to carry the project into effect." And.
it was rejected, not so much on ^'^count of its own
demerits, as because nobody bad confidence in the
capacity of the Ministry to devise and carry into ex-
ecution any beneficial proi;osal. It was a buu mea-
sure, moreover; partial in its application, pressing
invidiously and injuriously on pr.rticular interests,
and with no prospect of accomplishing the professed
object of its authors, viz., tliat ot bettering the finances
of the country. Ministers had been in office since
1835. For the first feu years they had the power to
carry their measures at least through the House of
Commons. During that period tlie trade and com-
merce of the country were by no means in affourishing
condition, and yet when Ministers had some degree
of ^ ower, and possessed some small portion of the
j)uliiic confidence, they made no attemj)t to free com-
merce from restrictions, and thereby relieve trade ui'
its embarrassments, and at the same time better the
revenue. In 1840 they had opposed M:\ E wart's
iiiotion for an ecpialization of sugar duties, which they
themselves adopted as the basis of their budget in
1841. The sugar duties were the only part of that
bud^'et wliicli went through the ordeal of Parliament-
ary discussion ; and considering wliai had occurred
tJH! year l)efnre, it is not surprising that on thcui i\\v

WHIG BUDGET OF 1841.

( Jovernniciit should have beeii defeated. Still they
adhered to office ; and as it was now evident that
nothing- but a direct vote of want of contidence could
deliver the country fi\ i their misrule, that vote was
proposed and earned; i.ot upon the merits of tlieir
measures, not in condemnation of the principles of
Free Trade, but in condemnation of a Ministry which,
since 1839, had l3een " unable to carry any measure
which they deemed essential to the public welfare ;"
and because their continuance in office was in these
circumstances " at variance with the spirit of the Con-
si iition."*

At the general election which followed, the decision
of the House of Commons was stamped with public
approval. Tiie •majority of one, by which Ministers
were defeated on the 4th of June, was, by the 27th of
Au[ 'ist, swelled to a majority of ninety-one. But,
whatever may have bc?n the ca>e with individuals,
and in particular agricultural constituencies, this gene-
ral result was not a verdict as to the application of
Fiee Trade [)rinciples, and in favour of restrictions upon
commerce. The mattf.r in dispute was not put, and,
what is of more importance, was not allowed to be put
upon that issue at the general election, eitiier by Lord
Stanley or Sir Robert Peel. All leading statesmen
were then at one ; ^ to a certain amount of protection
being necessary. Lard John l^ussell, in the matter of
corn, Wc.^ for an 85. duty ; Sir Robert Peel, for a mo-
dification of the existiiig sliding scale; and they were
all for s(^me protection, for this ])lain voason — that the
circumstances of the country did not at that time re-
quire and Monld not liave admitted of any very groat

* Vl(/e resolution niovocl by Sir R, Pcci on May -irtli, ls41.

h
If

WHIG BUDGET OF 1841.

;■

modification of the existing Corn duties; nor were the
revenue and finances of the country in a condition to
bear any general relaxation of commercial restrictions.
All, therefore, with very few exce}3ti«"ns, were for pro-
tection. The Whig' Government fancied they would
get revenue as well as protection by their proposal.
Still, they were for protection. And when they and
certain of their supporters endeavoured to claim a mo-
nopoly of Free Trade, and to raise a Free Trade cry with
a view to the general election, they were indignantly
checked, both by Lord Stanley, wlio ridiculed the
Whig budget in so far as it professed to be based upon
Free Trade ; and by Sir Robert Peel, who, before and
after the dissolution, entered his solemn protest against
its being supposed, that because lie voted against the
Whig budget, he was therefore opposed to, or to be
precluded from carrying into operation the removal of
commercial restrictions, or even a modification of the
ex' ang Corn Laws.

In the debate upon the sugar duties on tlie I2th
May, 1841, Lord Stan-ey, in answer to the attempt
made by some of the Ministerial party to puff them-
selves off as champions of Free Trade, and after showing
that both Lord John Russell and Lord Melbourne in-
troduced their measure as one of protection, said —

" I ask the Noble Lord opposite and the mcml ;rs of her
Majesty's Government, how they can put themselves for-
ward to the country as advocates of Free Trade, and appeal to
the country for support as tliough they had proposed a Free
Trade in corn, and in timber, and in sugar? As to corn, the
Noble Lord tells us that he proposes a protecting duty of 85.
a quarter; and though we may question whether that is an
adequate protection, yet the Noble Lord concurs with us in
principle by distinctly announcing his proposed duty as a
protecting duty (hear, hear). Tlien the Noble Lord has

WHIG BUDGET OF 1841.

announced himpelf as a free-trader in timber. But what is
he about to do? Not only does he keep up the duty between
Baltic and Canadian timber (which discriminating duty may
be too high or too low), but the Noble Lord as a free-trader,
goes one step further, and on an article f general consump-
tion, and which, by the laws of Free Trade, ought to be
specially exempted, the Noble Lord imposes an additional
duty of 100 per cent."

Then, as to the sugar duties. Lord Stanley goes on
to ask —

:'j

" What is this proposition which t\e free-traders are re-
quired to laud so highly and for which the consumer is to
be so grateful ? Wliy, merely this : the Noble Lord proposes
to relieve the distresses of the people by a reduction of the
discriminating duty to the extent of about six-tenths of a
■Hrthing in the pound, while he not only leaves on a dis-
criminating duty still, but also leaves untouched the whole
of the duty levied alike on British and Foreign sugar for the
purposes of revenue, amounting to a tax, upon an article of
universal consumption, of about 100 per cent. Again I say
the Noble Lord may be right ; again I say the necessities of
the revenue may compel him to take that course ; but when
he talks about upholding the principles of Free Trade, which
he is to carry cuL with a simplicity and a purity that arc to
be the wonder of all succeeding times, and an example to all
future Governments, I say that the continuance by him of
such heavy import duties on articles of such general con-
sumptv''.) and of such prime necessity, is in utter contradic-
tion .J : !)retensions, and must deprive him of that charac-
ter oi '' ci impion of Free Trade which he and others for
him ha\ . ^ oea so anxious to assume."

The speech of Lord Stanley effectually extinguished
Lord John Russell's clainns to the championship of
Free Trade. It was followed up on the 18th of May in
a similar strain by Sir Robert PeeL who, at the same
time, avowed himself the cordial supporter of all Mr.
Hju.4isson's measures : —

i (

5
lii

^ <l

*«

WHIG BUDGET OF 1841.

[ 1

"And now, forsootli (said the Right Honourable Bart.),
we are to be toid that Mr. Huskisson met witli not]uii<T but
obstruction from his own party, and that he was wafted
over all his difficulties on the overflowincf wave of Whiir
enthusiasm. The Noble Lord seems to claim an exclusive
inheritance of the principles of Mr. Huskisson — nay, he
makes the awful announcement, mat if he and his colleagues
are driven out of oflice, they will pack up the principles of
Free Trade and carry them oif with them. ' Don't rob us of
our jDroperty,' says the Noble Lord; but at last the gene-
rosity of his nature prevails, and he promises that if he is
properly applied to by his successors, he will not withhold
a contribution from the stock of liberal policy. Why, what
ricfht has the Noble Lord to claim this exclusive dominion
over the princ'plcs of JN''^". Huskisson? When did we hear a
word of them until the ? ire of the present moment ?

Was there ever any public i Avho pronounced so positive
a condemnation of the principles of Free Trade as the present
Prime Minister of this country ? and did one of you dissent
from that declaration ? When Lord Melbourne said that it
would be absolute insanity to deprive the agriculture of this
country of protection — and when he held language from
which it must be reasonably inferred that he tliought it
impossible in the complicated relations of society in this
country to apply the pure rrinciplesof Free Trade to the tratle
in corn, or almost anything else, when he gave this plain indi-
cation of his sentiments as the head of the Government — did
one man of you rise in this House to express his opinion as
to those sentiments ? Was the budget of last year brought
forward on the principles which are now advocated ? Was
the 5 per cent, additional on Customs and Excise a specimen
of your comprehensive financial views ? When the President
of the Board of Trade, in the simplicity of his heart, said there
could be no great harm in putting 5 per cent, additional on
tobacco, since the present amount of duty was 1200 jier
cent, on the prime cost of tlie article, had he then become a
convert to the principles of Mr. Huskisson ?"

While vSir Robert Peel thus ridiculed Lord John
HusselPs pretensions to be the successor of Mr. Hus-

WHIG BUDGET OF 1841.

kisson, he at tlie same time adopted Mr. Huskisson's
measures, and claimed for himself full right to follow
them up : —

" I can say with truth, notwithstanding the observations
of :hc Noble Lord, that there was no man in this House
from whom Mr. Huskisson derived a more cordial and inva-
riable support than he derived from me. 1 know not
whetlier the principles on which he acted are unpopular now
or not ; hut I <lo not /icsitate to declare that I did at that time
cordial! ji siipjxn't the propomls made bij Mr. Ilushisson, and that
the result of those measures has confirmed me in the wisdom of
that course. The Noblo Lord seemed to consider that Mr.
Huskisson met with a cold and hesitating support from his
colleagues, and from the party who generally acted in con-
currence wltli him ; but this I know, and I may appeal to
the Noble Lord (Lord Palmerston) to confirm my statement,
that Mr. Huskisson assiiined as one of ils chief reasons for
joining the Duke of Wellington in 1828, that he would have
me as a colleague, from whom he had previously received
constant and cordial support in his commercial measures."

This emj)liatic approval of Mr. Huskisson's mea-
sures, and of the application generally of Free Trade
principles, was made before the dissolution in 1841 ;
thus giving due warning to the Conservative party,
and to the public generally, that Sir Robert Peel held
himself free to introduce similar measures, should he
consider it expedient to do so. In the debate upon the
Address at the meeting of the new Parliament, in Au-
gust, 1841, and before the division which led to the
retirement of Lord Melbourne, and to Sir Robert Peel
being called to power, he reiterated the same opinions.
He protested against the conclusion, that because he op-
posed the Whig budget he was to be held as implying
an opinion " adverse to the removal of restrictions on
commerce, or hostile to the doctrines of Free Trade ;"
and went on to say, that iii professing- —

i-3l

WHIG HUDGET OF 1841.

" A general conviction of the truth of the principles of
Free Trade, I cannot be chargetl -with a new or hasty adoption
of them. When 1 was Secretary of State in 1825, I was in-
trusted with the preparation of the Speech from the Throne,
and I recommended the removal of restrictions on commerce
in a manner, as it appears to me, more calculated to promote
that removal and to make it acceptable and satisfactory than
the mode which has been adopted by the Government
opposite, of trying the principle of Free Trade as a mere
scheme of financial policy."

He then quoted the King's Speech of 1825, congra-
tulating the country upon the success of tlie measures
already passed, and recommending a further removal
of restrictions upon commerce ; and added —

" I may again say, when the Right Honourable Gentleman
talks of assuming the mantle of Mr. Huskisson, I can say
with truth that 1 did cordially co-operate with Mr. Hus-
kisson in his financial measures, and that I did receive from
Mr. Huskisson the assurance that from no member of the
Government had he received more cordial support than from
myself in carrying his measures, and in mitigating the
difficulties with which he had to contend."

The preceding extracts, when read in connection
with those applicable to Sir Robert Peel's conduct
prior to 1830, are amply sufficient to account for the
opinions expressed by Lord Melbourne and Mr.
Disraeli, in 1845 and 1842. They show, moreover,
whatever may have been the case in particular consti-
tuencies, and with reference to the ultra-Tory section
of the Conservative party, that the result of the gene-
ral election never could be held to amount to a decision
against the removal of restrictions on commerce., or
hostile to the cautious application of the doctrines of
Free Trade. It was a decision against the Govern-
ment of the day, and their indi^adual measures —

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S POSITION IN 1841.

against allowing an incapable Ministry to tamper with
delicate financial and commercial questions. But it
left Sir Robert Peel and all those who concurred in
his views upon those questions — all Conservatives of
the Pitt and Canning school, free to be parties to a
more extended application of the liberal principles of
mercantile policy, which Mr. Pitt had been tlie first
to bring into practical operation, and which had been
followed up by the Tory Governments of 1824, 1825,
and 1826, provided the progress of political know-
ledge and the varying circumstances of the world
rendered such a policy in their opinion expedient and
conducive to th^ public benefit. But they also prove,
and that beyond the possibility of cavil, the correctness
of the statement made at the outset of these remarks,
viz. that the large section of Conservatives who sup-
ported the measures of 1846 were not in thus acting
guilty of treachery to their friends, and did not aban-
don Conservative principles, and adopt the principles
of the Whigs, inasmuch as first, the application of the
principles of Free Trade did not originate with the
Whigs, but with Mr. Pitt, and was afterwards fol-
lowed up by the successors of Mr. Pitt; secondly, the
Conservative party was organized for objects and
upon grounds irrespective altogether of any question
affecting the removal of commercial restrictions ; and
thirdly, it reckoned among its members, nay, had
selected for its leaders, statesmen who were known to
have been cordial supporters, in the face of obloquy
and vituperation similar to that with which they
have lately been assailed, of all Mr. Huskisson's mea-
sures, and to be friendly to the utmost i)ossible relax-
ation of commercial restrictions, consistent with the
security of the revenue, and that even at the risk of

'' <

ALTEI{El) VIKWS OF STATESMEN RELATIVE TO

I )

inflicting some injury on the interests more imme-
diately affected.

Such being tlie real position of parties and of indi-
vidual statesmen in regard to the })rineiples of Free
Trade, and their apj)lication to existing commercial
restrictions, it still remains to be considered whether
there was anything so peculiar in the position of Sir
Robert Peel and those Conservatives who acted with
him in 184(), in relation to the Corn Laws, as to
render it an act of treachery in them to consent to the
prospective repeal of those laws, or to exclude them
from public confidence for acceding to that proposi-
tion. The Corn question has been reserved for separate
remark, not so much becaase corn ought to be treated
as an exception to the general rules of political eco-
nomy, but because the conduct of those Conservatives
who ao:reed with Sir Robert Peel in 1846 has been
subjected to much more severe animadversion with
reference to the repeal of the Corn liaws than the
removal of other restrictions upon commerce.

The charge brought against them amounts in one
view merely to this, that they changed their opinions
on the Corn Laws ; that while they were in favour of
a certain amount of protection to agriculture in 1841,
they gave up that protection in 1846. This charge is
unquestionably true. But where is the man to be
found with any pretensions to the character of a states-
man whose opinions in 1846 on the subject of agri-
cultural protection did not differ materially from those
entertained by him in 1841 ? This change of opinion
is not, strictly speaking, the question here under con-
sideration. The point to be considered is, whether
there was anything in the position of the Conservatives
of the Pitt and Canning school to preclude them on

TIIK COIJN-I-AWS HKTVVKEN 1841 ANL) la40.

tlic score of consistency from being parties to tlie
Corn Law measures of 184(5, or wliieli ouglit fairly
to lay them open to the charges of dishonesty and
treachery for doing the same things which other men
are considered at any rate honest, however mistaken,
in acceding to.

As has before been remarked, all men, with the
exception of a few abkract-prineiple legislators, were
for protection in 1841. Lord John Russell supported
the 8,s. duty as a measure of protection ; and he
frankly stated in his letter to the electors of London
in November, 1845, that his opinions on the subject
of corn *• liad undergone a great alteration." Resting
his defence of this change of '^pinion in a great measure
on the ground of the serious calamity that had befallen
the potato crop, he at the same time intimated

" That the imposition of any duty at present, without a
provision for its extinction witliin a short period, would but
proloni,' a contest aiveady suHiciently fruiti'ul of animosity
and discontent. The struggle to make bread scarce and
dear, when it is clear that part at least of the additional
price goes to increase rent, is a struggle deeply injurious
to an aristocracy, which (this quarrel once removed) is
■stronir in property, strong in the construction of our legis-
lature, strong in opinion, strong in ancient associations, and
in the memory of immortal services."

Upon these grounds Lord John Russell abandoned, in
1845, the position he had taken up in 1841 and subse-
quent years, and was followed, with a few exceptions, by
the whole Whig party. But to come nearer home. Were
Lord Stanley's opinions of 1841 adhered to in 184G?
Unquestionably they were not. The representatives
of the ultra-Tory pa'-ty, headed by Sir Richard Vyvyan,
are understood to have wished to make Lord Stanley

LORD STANLEY'S

thei" loader in 1841, instead of Sir Robert Peel, He
had made no such explieit reservation of his right to
modify the Corn Law of 18:28, as it will immediately
be seen Sir Robert i\>eldid in 1811. Jle must there-
fore have sadly disappointed the expectati(ms of his
admirers, when in these circnmstanees he cordially
eoncnrred in the Corn Act of 1842, which the j!)iike9
of Richmond and Bucknigham'hcld to be a breach of
fiiith with the agricultnral party, and against which
charge Mr. Disraeli came to the rescue of the Ministry
in that year. Lord Stanley's conduct in 184.'^, when by
his Canada Corn Bill he made a much more serious
breach in the Corn Law of 1842 than the latter did
upon the law of 1828, must have been still more dis-
tasteful to the agricultural party. But not content
with this, Lord Stanley went a step further in 1845.
Although opposed to tl i prospective total repeal of
the Corn Law of 1842, he was not averse in 1845 to
a modification of that law, and to a further diminution
of agricultural protection. To what extent of altera-
tion Lord Stanley was prepared to agree in 1845 has
never been precisely explained ; but that he was ready
to concur in some alteration, and refused to form an
Administration to keep up the law of 1842, never was
denied.

In the course of the explanations made in January 26,
1846, in the House of Lords, relative to the resignation
of Sir Robert Peel in December 1845, the Duke of
Wellinoton stated that in the Cabinet discussions Sir
Robert Peel and others were of opinion that in the
event of the ports being opened a considerable altera-
tion in the existing Corn Laws would be rendered
absolutely necessary ; that to this the majority were
opposed, but that " everybody admitted some altera-

CANADA COKN DILL OF IHl.'l.

't'.)

tion was necessary," — " that was admitted by all." In
tlie same debate the Duke of Wellington mentioned
that he and others " were called upon to state whetlier
they were disposed to form adovernment on the prin-
ciple of maintaining the existing Corn Laws ;" that he
would not pretend to say what others answered, Init
that he himself had declined to form such a Govern-
ment. Lord Stanley is understood to liave been pre-
sent when the Duke of Wellington made this explana-
tion, and he did not attempt to contradict the account
given of the Cabinet discussions, or the statement that
all were agreed some i'urther alteration required to be
made upon the law of 1842. That Lord Stanley was
one of the *' others " alluded to as having declined to
form a Protection Cabinet had before been made public
by a letter, dated December 24th, 1845, and read by
Lord Norreys at a meeting in Oxfordshire, stating,
upon the authority of Lord Stanley, " that he would
neither have consented at the time when Sir Robert
Peel resigned to form an Administration, nor would
he now undertake to do so." *

Lord Stanley having thus been a party to the mea-
sure of 1842, and the author of the Canada Corn Bill
of 1843, and having, moreover, in consequence of the
peculiar position of matters in 1845, been ready to
accede to some alteration on the law of 1842, and
having also refused to take the responsibility of form-
ing a Protection Government in 1845, is nevertheless
lauded for his honesty and consistency, and as having
done no violence to the opinions expressed by him
in 1841. And this being the case, it is certainly very
difficult to understand how, in common fairness, Sir

'Vide Spectator, January 17, 184G, p. 53.

.M<)l)IFI(r\TK)NS OF COHN F, \WS

i ■

Robert I\rl, and tliose wlio af>Tcc(l with liim, sliould
bi5 churged with trcfichcry to tiie agricultural interest,
and with abandoning- tiieir principk'S, merely bceanse
they thought that the eireunistances of the country
required a greater alteration in the law of 1842 than
Lord Stanley considered necessary, and because they
also thought it for the interest of all ])arties, and
especially of the agricultural body, to fix a period,
after wliieh it would be better not to keep up even
the reduced amount of protection.

The Corn Laws, which stand repeale<l at the end
of three years by the Act of lS4f), were introduced in
peculiar circumstances. It is well known, that in
order to meet the very extraordinary state of matters
brought about by the duration of the French revo-
lutionary war, a very heavy duty was laid uj)on the
the importation of foreign corn by the law of 1815,
a duty amounting u an absolute restriction upon
importation until the average price rose to 80.n\ a
quarter. This was soon felt to be a disadvantageous
arrangement; and in April, 182"2, Mr. lluskisson
moved a series of resolutions recommending a con-
siderable alteration in the law of 1815. So complete
had been the change effected by that law, as com-
p ired w'ith the state of matters prior to 1815, that
one of those resolutions went the length of affirm-
ing " that a Free Trade in foreign corn, subject to
certain duties on the importation thereof for home
consumption, was at all times permitted prior to the
Act 55 Geo. IlL c. 26." The other resolutions also
proceeded upon the assumption that the Act 55
Geo. III. required to be materially modified; and
although none of them were then agreed to, Mr.
Huskisson's colleagues, and the late Marquis of Lon-

HKTWEEN 1815 ANU 1841.

.^1

(loiulcrry in particular, did not dispute tlio general
principles involved in tliem, which ap])ear to have
formed the basis of the hills introduced in 1827 and
1828.

The Corn Law of 1815 having been thus framed to
suit a particular state of things, and with the evident
intention of its being altered, or even repealed, as
soon as the circumstances of the country rendered
that advisabh , it was considerably modified and al-
tered in 1828. ^^'hen a change was first proposed in
1827, the Ministry were even then charged with
inconsistency in departing from the arrangements
made in 1815. But they were defended by Sir liobert
Peel, at that time in office with Mr. Canning, upon
the ground that the altered state of the country made
it necessary to modify the law ; and it was contended
that the alterations in the currency alone were sich,
"that it was quite impossible to impute inconsistency
-J any man, who in 1827* condemned the continu-
ance of the measure which he supported in 1815."
The bill of 1827 was thrown out in the House of
Lords ; but in the following year another bill, em-
bodying fully as extensive an alteration in the law of
1815, was carried through by the Duke of Wellington
and Sir Robert Peel.

From 1828 to 1841 periodical attacks were made
upon the Corn Law of the former year, but unaccom-
panied by any proposal for a general revision of our
commercial system. These atcacks were resisttd by
the Whig Administrations of Earl Grey and Lord
Melbourne, i nd until 1841 the idea never seemed to
have occurred to the Whig party to introduce, as a

* March 8.

E 2

I>'I

I '

SIR H. PEEL IN 1841 RESEllVES IIIS RIGHT

■ i.;
-■i

Government measure, any alteration ?n the Corn
Law of 1828. Such a proposal would have at once
deiached the whole Whig aristocracy from the Govern-
ment.

In 1841, however, the 8s, fixed duty was proposed
by Lord Melbourne. When this was done, did Sir
Robert Peel oppose it upon the ground that it was
an alteration of the law of 182H, and tliat it was
essential to keep up that law ? By no mean^. He
distinctly reserved to himself, on ihe question of the
Corn Laws, the same freedom of action ls in the
removal of other restrictions; viz., unlimited power
to remodel the Act of 1828, so as to lessen the amount
of protection, and suit that measure to the altered
circumstances of the times. Further, in the debate
in August, 1841, he repudiated the support of the
agricultural body, unless he was to have "the un-
fettered discretion of considering and amending the
existing: law." As rea:ards this reservation of his
right to use his own discretion in proposing any
alteration he miglit consider necessnry upon the Corn
Laws, Sir Robert Peel is reported to have spoken as
follows on the S/th of August, 1841 :-

" I now approach the more important and exciting ques-
tion of the Corn Laws. In order that I may make no mis-
take, allow me to refer to the expressions which I made use
of on tins point before the dissolution. I said, that on con-
sideration I had formed an opinion wlilch Intcivcning con-
sideration had not induced me to alter, that the principle of
a graduated scale was preferable to that of a fixed and
irrevocable duty — but 1 said then, and I say now, and in
doing so I repeat the la.iguage I held In 1839, that I will
not bind myself to the details of the existing law, but will
reserve to myself the unfettered discretion of considering
and amending that law. I hold the same language now —

wmiii u I I lib.

TO AI.TEIl OU ABOLISH THE CORN LAWS,

but if you ask mo whether I bind myself to the maintenance
of the existing law in its details, or if you say that that is
tl\c condition on which the agricultural interest gave me
their support, I say that on that condition I will not accept
their support."

Tills was a very clear and explicit, and, wdiat is of
more importance, a timely declaration of the position
in which Sir Robert Peel stood in relation to his agri-
cultural supporters, and ought of itself to preclude
them from brinj^ing any such charges against him as
those in which even their leaders in the House of
Commons have allowed themselves to have recourse
to. But the following passage from the same speech
contains a stiU more explicit intimation of how he
would consider himself bound to act in circumstances
of general distress, in the event of his being satisfied
that a repeal of the Corn Laws would be calculated in
any degree to alleviate that distress : —

"Tf I could bring myself to think — if I could believe that
an alteration of the Corn Laws would preclude the risk of
such listress, if I thought it would be an cfTcftual remedy,
in all cases, against such instances of lamentable suffering as
those whicli have been described, I would say at once to the
agricultural interest, ' It is for your advantage rather to sub-
mit to any reduction of price than, if an alteration cf the
Corn Laws would really be the cure for their sufferings, to
compel their continuance.' I should say that it would be
for the interest, not of the community in general, but
especially of the agriculturists themselves, if, by any sacrifice
of theirs, they could prevent the existence of such distress.
If any sacrifice of theirs could prevent their being tlo real
cause of the distress — could prevent the continuaiice of it — ■
could ofier a guarantee against the recurrence of it, I would
earnestly advise a relaxation, an alteration, nay, if necessary,
a Repeal of the Corn Laws."

Sir Robert Peel havins: thus reserved to himself

THAT COUrSE JUSTIFIED BY THE

I '.

ii '

slj,

unlimited discretion to deal with the Corn Laws, and
with the application of the principles of Free Trade, in
whatever way the circumstances of the country might
require, it does seem to be the height of absurdity, to
say nothing of the injustice of the proceeding, to en-
deavour to hold him, and those of his supporters who
were all along known to entertain liberal views on
commercial policy, up to public odium, as for ever
unfit to take any part in the management of affairs,
simply because they were of opinion in 1845 that the
very alarming circumstances of the country rendered
it imperative to introduce an extensive alteration of
the laws regulating the importation of foreign pro-
duce and manufactures. That Sir Robert Peel and
his leading colleagues in the Ministry were free to do
this, and that in perfect consistency with their former
professions, must have now been proved to the satis-
faction of every candid and unprejudiced man ; and
that there are, therefore, no grounds whatsoever for
charrjing them either with hypocrisy or desertion, will
be Liade equally clear to any man who calmly con-
siders the very peculiar and trying position of the
country at the time when these alterations were pro-
posed.

It is unnecessary, as matters now stand, to re-
capitulate the circumstances which led to the Cabinet
discussions in 1845, and to the introduction of the
measures of 1846. However much the failure of the
potato crop, and the probability of that failure bring-
ing about a scarcity of provisions, may have been ridi-
culed in the spring of 1846, it is now a sad reality;
and it is impossible to conceive that, had the Corn
Laws of 1842 t-xistod in 1846, any ten men would
have been found in either House of Parliament bold

STATE OF THE COUNTRY IN 184G,

eiiougli to undertake the responsibility of resisting
their repeal. The position of this country relative to
the supply of food even in the end of 1845 was suf-
ficient to create very great anxiety and alarm, and
to tax to the utmost the energy and sagacity of states-
men. It led Lord John Russell to advise an imme-
diate repeal of the Corn Laws, in opposition to his
opinions of 1841. It led Lord Stanley to think a
further alteration should be made in the law of 1842 ;
and it led the Central Protection Society to resolve
upon the propriety of opening the po'*ts. And was
S.r Robert Peel, of all men, to be alone precluded in
such circumstances from exercising his discretion, and
was he alone to be charged with dishonesty and trea-
chery in advising the remedy which he thought the
state of the country imperatively required ? If men
with inferior sources of information wera ready to
open the ports, without knowing how they were ever
again to be closed ; and if men of confessedly inferior
capacity, foresight, and experience as statesmen to Sir
Robert Peel, " a minister," as the ' Quarterly Review '
admits, " of unrivalled talents, and of the maturest
experience,"* saw in the anticipated fail of the
supply of food enough to justify them, the ono in
abandoning altogether in 1846 the protection he
thought necessary in 1841, and the other in changing
thp law of 1842, is no latitude to be allowed to the
Minister charged with the responsibility of providing
against the anticipated evils? Is his conduct, and
that of his supporters, in agreeing with the one, and
thinking it necessary to go somewhat further than the
other, to be charged with nothing short of treachery

* <

Quarterly Review ' lor March, 1847.

i ' i

\l§

i I

']\

If I

BKEAK-UP OF CONSERVATIVE PARTY

to their party and desertion of their friends, while the
conduct of those others is praised as honest and con-
sistent ? Considered in this point of view, the question
admits of but one answer. Sir Robert Peel may have
formed a wrong opinion ; his measures may turn out
to be productive of no good, or, it may be, of much
evil. That, however, remains to be proved ; and until
it is proved, it is nothing less than gross injustice to
condemn him and the Conservatives who went along
with him, much more so to charge them wi^h trea-
chery and desertion of their friends for introducing
the measures of 1846.

Whatever opinions may have been expressed in
1845 and 1846 as to the exaggerated nature of the
evils, and as to these having been exaggerated to suit
the purposes of the moment, no man can now say
that Sir Robert Peel was unnecessarily alarmed.
Already are men beginning to view matters in a very
different light, and to give credit to whom credit is
due. In the recent number of the ' Quarterly Review*
Sir Robert Peel's foresight and sagacity are admitted.
While great fault is found with him as having done
much harm by his measures of 1846, and it is
rejrretted that he did not have recourse to some
temporary measure of relief, thereby preventing the
" fracture of his party " and the evils the Reviewer
already anticipates from the Government of his suc-
cessors, he is at the same time spoken of as " tmder-
standing and anticipating, as he certainly did far
more clearly and fully than any other statesman in
England, the nature, the growth, and the ultimate
magnitude of the evil as respected the potato culti-
vation."

And if this be the case, if Sir Robert Peel's saga-

NOT JUSTIFIED BY MEASURES OF 184G.

city led him to discern what others saw darkly, or
doubted altogether, may not the very same sagacity
have led him to judge aright as to the remedy,
although others, who judged wrong as to the extent of
the evil, may still fancy themselves infallible as to the
treatment they recommended for a disease which they
admit they did not understand ? And did it never
in these circumstances occur to the Reviewer and his
friends that the fracture of the party was not alto-
gether chargeable against Sir Robert Peel ? If
men had been at pains calmly and dispassionately
to consider the measures of 1846; if instead, of allow-
ing tliemselves to be hurried on by Lord George
Bentinck and Mr. Disraeli, and to charge with dis-
honesty, and with falsifying returns, statesmen who are
certainly as little likely to be guilty of such practices
as their accusers, they had patiently waited the re-
sult ; if the Quarterly Reviewer, instead of giving the
colour of his influential support to an opposition
rested upon allegations which have turned out to be
rash and erroneous, had suspended his judgment till
the extent of the calamity was disclosed, and had
made the same allowance for the sagacity of the
JMinister which he has all along done for the purity of
the man, then perhaps might c»thers of less capacity
than the Reviewer have abstained from the tactics
which overthrew the late Administration, and might
have hesitated to bring about that disorganization
of the Conservative party which the Reviewer now
laments, and which, by rashly censuring and judging,
the more violent section of the Protectionists have
had their own share in producing.

It is not uncommon to hear people say that " they
do not so much object to the Corn Laws being repealed,

r:^

PROPOSAL TO OPEN THE POUTS

■•

i
I 1

as to the manner in which it was done." Thev admit
that the scarcity of 1845 and the famine of 1846 li-ive
proved Sir Robert Peel to be right. The Corn Laws
they allow could not have been maintained, but they
blame the mode in which tliey were surrendered. To
say nothing of the captious nature of oUch an objec-
tion, with reference to an important course of policy
at a great national crisis, though it sounds much the
same as if those who were saved from shipwreck should
afterwards criticise the mere manner or demeanour of
the pilot who preserved them — independently of this
consideration, the objection itself is entirely groundless.
Its proposers, when asked , /hat other method of doing
this unavoidable thing they would have preferred,
generally answer that if the danger df famine was so
great, the minister should have opened the ports, and
should then have called his party together and given
them due warning, if any permanent change in the
Corn Laws was considered necessary. Mr. Miles
stated in the House of Commons that a suggestion
made by him to open the ports " met with the most
enthusiastic applause" from a company of tenant far-
mers ; — and this is the manner in which it is now
contender" by many that Sir Robert Peel should have
acted. This, then, is the omission of which he is said
to have been guilty. If therefore it can be shown that
he and those who went along with him are free from
this censure, they must be acquitted altogether, at least
by one section of their accusers.

Now what are the facts ? When famine was im-
pending, the first step taken by Sir Robert Peel was to
propose the opening of the ports, the very measure
which he is now blamed for not adopting. In that
proposal he was unsuccessful, not because his own

REJECTED BY ?'Tl R. PEEL'S COLLEAGUES.

hey
To
ec-

anxiety for it was small, but because the majority of
his colleagues differed from him in opinion. His
public statement on this point is clear and conclusive.

"It appeared to mc, however, that the reports received
from the Lord-Lieutenant — that the examples of foreign
countries — that the example of Belgium, wliich had cleared
the market of Liverpool almost in one day, and had caused
a rise of 75 per cent, in the price of rice — rendered it the
duty of the Government to take a step ■which Avas not with-
out a precedent, and either by an Order in Council, or by
calling Parliament together within a fortnight, to remove
for a time all restrictions upon the importation of foreign
corn. That was the advice I gave on the 1 st of November.
I was perfectly ready to take the responsibility of issuing an
Order in Council. The period was a critical one. There
was an advantage in issuing an Order in Council, for time
would thus have been saved; and I was prepared, as the
head of the Government, to take that responsibility. I did
not insist, however, upon the Order in Council ; for I Avas
equally prepared to caV Parliament together immediately,
and to advise the removal, for a limited period^ of all re-
strictions on the importation of corn. I did not consider it
any objection that the temporary removal of those restric-
tions might compel a reconsideration of the Tariff. My
advice at that period was not followed. Three only of my
colleagues concurred in the vicAV Avhich I took, and we
separated on the 0th of November ; I reserving to myself
the right of again calling the Cabinet together, in the hope
that if the alarm Avhich I apprehended sliould be confirmed
by subsequent occurrences, the advice Avhich I gave Avould
be folloAved at a later period." *

When this later period arrived, similar advice was
tendered to the Cabinet, although, as Sir Robert Peel
said, " the lapse of time, the increase of agitation, and
other circumstances, liad materially affected his posi-

* Hansard, p. 87.

SIR KOBEUT PLEL RESIGNS.

k f

tion." But that advice was again rejected, and in
particular by Lord Stanley, who thought the danger
had been magnified ; and the result was, that Sir

Robert Peel, not

being

able to obtain a united

Cabinet — an essential element in so important a
crisis — resigned.

If a united Cabinet had then concurred in the
cour£:3 proposed, the aspect of matters would have
been changed, and events would have followed in a
difl'crent order. A temporary suspension of the Corn
Laws would have taken place, and in that event those
who now declare that such is the course Sir Robert
Peel should have pursued, and who have recently
evinced their own readiness to open the ports, cannot
surely continue to blame him when they reflect that
this was the very course which he proposed, but which
he was prevented from following by a majority of his
Cabinet. The failure of that proposal led to other
results which will immediately be noticed. But it
can never in common fairness be denounced as treason
to the Conservative party to have advocated that very
policy of which many leading Protectionists have
since professed their ap})roval.

It is, no doubt, true that the opening of the ])orts
would have involved a reconsideration of the Corn
Laws before the ports could again be shut. For that
necessity, however. Sir Robert Peel could not in any
view be responsible. It arose from the very nature
of things. It was the one main ground on which a
portion of the Ministry resisted the opening of the
ports when first proposed. But if it was right to take
that step for the safety of human life, it was right and
necessary to run the risk that was involved in it.

If, indeed, Sir Robert Peel and tho-je who agreed

Ill

ger

HIS SUBSEQUENT POLICY UNAVOIDARLE

with him had tried to conceal that risk — if ho had
recommended the temporary expedient of opening the
|>orts, and had kept in the background the new con-
dition in wliich the question of protection would again
present itself— he might with some justice be charged
with that betrayal of his friends which is now so
groundlessly imputed to him. It might then have
been said thai he had treacherously led his party into
a position where they were unconsciously placed at
the mercy of their opponents. But the very reverse
of all this was the conduct he pursued ; and it is not
impossible that much of the difficulty with which he
had to contend arose from the very candour and free-
dom with wliich his opinions and anticipations were
expressed. If he had been allowed to follow the policy
he had marked out, his e.:])lanations to his party at
large would have been equally open and explicit.
That he was prevented from doing this may not be
matter of blame to any one, but least of all can it
form a charge against himself.

The refusal of a majority of the Cabinet to concur
in opening the ports, and the delay that took place,
as well as the j)ublic excitement that arose in con-
nexion with the state of the country, soon gave to the
whole crisis a new appearance of difficulty and danger.
When the Cabinet ceased to be unanimous, and con-
tinued at variance even upon the preliminary question
proposed to them. Sir Robert Peel ceased to be Mi-
nister, and made room for any successor that might
be called upon to fill his place ; and it has been shown
that neither when he resigned, nor when Lord John
Russell failed to construct a cabinet, was any Pro-
tectionist party prepared to assume the responsibility
of office. Sir Robert Peel was thus recalled to power

DISOnOANISATION OF

J I

t I

' 1

as the only minister wlio could form a Cabinet ; but
Jie returned under circumstances and cnoao-enicuts
entirely new. The only question that now remained
was, how to serve the Queen and save the country,
and how best to escape or mitigate the horrors of that
calamity which few but himself had the wisdom to
foresee. He was then fully entitled and imperatively
called upon to follow out his own convictions, as he
was left to act on his own responsibility; and per-
verted indeed must be the minds of those who, in
lookino; to what he did, can find fault with the man-
ner while they acquiesce in the result, or can criticise
the form when they do not object to the substance of
the measures. Any Ministry that accepted office after
Lord John Russell's failure to form one, was under an
obligation to settle the Corn Law question ; and well it
was for the country, and for all classes of the com-
munity, that a question involving elements so fearful
as those which attend a famine was timefully set at
rest by the prudence and patriotism of a Cabinet
guided by the ablest statesman of the age. It would
have been a sad hour for the aristocracy of England,
and for all the institutions which the Conservative
party are sworn to protect, if their preservation had
come to be regarded by a famishing people as a stand-
ing obstacle in the way of an easier access to the means
of subsistence.

As it is, however, one result of the measure of 1846
has been, that the Conservative party is, for the pre-
sent at least, to all appearances much disorganized.
That great party which Sir Robert Peel was the chief
instrument in building up, by means, as he himseh
used to say, of strengthening and " widening the
foundations " on which it was originally reared, — that

CONSERVATIVE PATiTV.

O.'i

^roiit party, formed to tlofcnd the Protestant Church
from spoliation, and maintain on their ancient footing
our institutions in Church and State, but whicli was
at tlie same time not opposed to rational changes
required by the lapse of years or the altered circum-
stances of society, — which, resisting organic changes
in the Constitution, professed itself friendly to all
practical and ccononiical reforms, and was led to
victory by men who were the colleagues of Mr. Can-
ning and the disciples of Mr. Pitt, — which, in 1841,
found our Indian empire shaken to its centre, and our
relations with America and with France in a most
precarious condition, and which, under the same
guidance, re-established our connexion with France on
a satisfactory footing, adjusted the threatened disputes
in the West, and restored tranquillity in the East, —
which in 1841 found the Exchequer empty, the
revenue insufficient to meet the expenditure, and the
public debt yearly increasing, and which under the
same guidance remodelled our financial and com-
mercial policy so as to replenish the Exchequer,
raise the revenue far above the expenditure, and
reduce the public debt, — and which, had those who
composed it known their own interests and received
the measures of 1846 in a spirit suited to the exi-
gencies of the times, might have stood upon a firmer
footing than any party had ever done si^.ce the days
of Mr. Pitt, — that great ]5arty has apparently now
been broken up, and by what ? solely in consequence
of the introduction of measures based upon an appli-
ca*^^ion of principles of commercial policy, opposition
to which never formed an essential in the creed of the
Conservative body — principles which had always been
professed and acted upon by their chosen leaders since

< \

til

CONCLUSION.

the time of Mr. Pitt. That party is said to be broken
up, and its disorganization lias at all events cleared
the 'way for the restoration to office of men whom the
Conservative party had opposed as unworthy of public
confidence long' before they had proj)osed any plan
for altering the Corn Laws, and who are described in
the article in the ' Quarterly Review ' just referred to
as ** entirely incompetent for conducting cither our
finances with discretion or our police with firmness,
or of mfiintaining that attitude of dignity in the sight
of the world at large, which is essential to the traii-
rpiillity of Europe."

What is to be the result of all this it is difficult to
predict. Already, however, in one portion of the
British empire, the severity with which its calamities
arc pressing upon it begins to be traced in public
opinion to the absence from the helm of affairs of th.e
man best fitted to grapple with the difficulties of the
times, and that by no supporters of the policy of the
late Administration. An article on the state of Ire-
land in the April number of the ' Dublin University
Magazine,' a periodical of talent and reputation, and
which, though decidedly opposed to the measures of
Sir Robert Peel, has the candour and straightforward-
ness to do justice to their author, contains the following
passage : —

" It was, however, the misfortune of faminc-strickcn
Ireland, and a deep misfortune almost all men in Ireland
now feel it to be, that party eombinations (we say not now
how justifiable or honourable) removed from oflice the man
■who had shown himself alone, perhaps, of living statesmen,
alive to the exigencies of the crisis, and capable of boldly and
effectually meeting them. It was an occasion on which no
statesman could efficiently serve his country out of office.

CONCLUSION.

♦ * * ♦ » With the removal of Peel from office, he lost
the power of even assisting to obviate the danger, which, we
do believe, had he remained in office, ho would successfully
have met."

Such, according to a well-informed writer, in the
opinion of " almost all men in Ireland," arc some of
the first-fruits of that party combination which led to
the retirement of Sir Robert Peel. What is to follow
no man can tell ; and the preceding remarks cannot
be better concluded than by giving the following
extract from the same able periodical in relation to
the motives which led to the repeal of the Corn Laws,
and which points out some of the evils, and those no
slight ones, which have been warded off by the mea-
sures of 1 846 : —

" Our sketch of this part of our history would be incom-
plete without alluding to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, by
which the Session of 1846 was ushered in. On that ques-
tion this periodical has already strongly and distinctly
expres.'od '"^s opinion, and that opinion it forms no part of
the object of this article to qualify or retract. Sir Robert
Peel stated, however, in Parliament, that the determinai on
of Ministers to settle the question was forced on by their
anticipation of an Irish famine — that he and his colleagues
felt it would be impossible to maintain the protection during
that famine — and that the ports, once opened to avert
starvation, never could be closed— that the agitation of the
question of the Corn Laws in a famine, when arguments in
favour of cheap bread could carry with them such a deep
appeal to the passions and sympathies of the human heart,
would go far to break up society altogether. The coming
of the Irish famine was that which, he stated, forced the
Ministry to perhaps a premature decision upon the question
— and we well remember the deep and solemn warning in
which, with all the authority of a Premie/, he predicted the
coming of a calamity in Ireland, of which no one could know

CONCLUSION.

f '"

;:i^

i1!

or measure the extent. ***********
Time has already done juatice to the speech to which we have
referred. Predictions that even from Sir Robert Peel were
looked upon as tlie exaggerations of the politician, events have
proved to be but the language of caution. Every man can
now feel the pressure under which he acted in the nearer view
of the calamity that is now upon us; we can appreciate the
sagacity that foresaw the fv.'.I extent of the calamity that wrs
co'.ning, and y\e can understand the feeling under which the
Premier sacrificed party associations and power, and cherished
friends, to what he believed to be his duty. Thus far, at least,
time has vindicated his conduct ; and who is there that docs nut
feel with what immeasi, ble power for evil over the passions
of the multitude, the agitator for a Free Trade in Corn could
now have directed the fury of the mob against the corn-law
lords, by denouncing their monopoly as the cause of the hor-
rors of Skibbcreen .'' All this, it is true, leaves untouched the
question, whether the Corn Laws ought to be maintained or
not; but a calm and impartial estimate of events must decide,
that of all the motived which in that memorable speech Sir
Robert Peel declared to have influenced his mind, time has
proved and tested the power and the strength."

All this IP ay " leave untouched the question whether
the Corn Laws ought to have been maintained." But
it does not leave untouched me question of the honesty
and consistency of that section of the Conservative
party which supported their repeal. They believed in
1846 the predictions which " events have proved to
have been but the language of caution," and the truth
of which " time has tested and proved." Looking
upon the Corn Laws as a practical question, a mere
measure of expediency, which had before been made
to yield to the force of events, they could see nothing
inconsistent in holding that these laws should be made
to bend still further, in order to meet a force of events
which no human laws could ever for a moment have
withstood. Believing that the time had come when

iiifr'""**'iii'rBri«ii>i

■MiiHi£<

CONCLUSION.

;i relaxation of those laws, with a provision for their
ultimate repeal, might be made without injury to the
agriculturists and with benefit to the community, and
was moreover imp'^ratively required as being well
calculated to mitigate the anticipated calamity, and to
ward off the " immeasurable power for evil " which
the attempt to keep u}) those laws in a time of famine
would give — " a power for evil which might go far
to bi-eak up society altogether," they threw in their lot
with that of the authors of the measure of 1846. In
doing tliis they felt that they were fulfilling a public
duty ; while they could see no grounds — and it is be-
lieved that when the heats and animosities that neces-
sarily attend such changes siiall have passed away, an
impartial public will see no grounds — on which they
ought to forfeit the good opinion of their former
friends, or could justly be charged with deserting the
])rinciples which were the basis of their union in 1836,
and whicli may still be the bond of future co-operation
in every thing that affects the safety of the country or
the constitution.

London • I'rinted by William Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street.