XLII. 1845. 42. sion of grain, for the consumption of the United Kingdom. CHAP. An Order in Council dispensing with the law was neither necessary nor desirable. No party in Parliament would have made itself responsible for the obstruction of a measure so urgent and beneficial. The Queen's ministers have met and separated without affording us any promise of such seasonable relief. It becomes us, therefore, as the Queen's subjects, to consider how we can best avert, or at all events mitigate, calamities of no ordinary magnitude. "Two evils require your consideration-one of these is the disease in the potatoes, affecting very seriously Continued. parts of England and Scotland, and committing fearful ravages in Ireland. The extent of this evil has not yet been ascertained, and every week tends either to reveal unexpected disease, or to abate in some districts the alarms previously entertained. But there is one effect peculiar to failure in this particular crop. The effect of a bad corn harvest is, in the first place, to diminish the supply in the market, and raise the price. Hence diminished consumption and the privation of incipient scarcity, by which the whole stock is more equally distributed over the year, and the ultimate pressure is greatly mitigated. But the fear of the breaking out of this unknown disease among the potatoes, induces the holders to hurry into the market, and thus we have at one and the same time. rapid consumption and impending deficiency, scarcity of the article and cheapness of price. The ultimate suffering must thereby be rendered far more severe than it would otherwise be. Another evil under which we are suffering is the fruit of Ministerial counsel and Parliamentary law. The duties on the importation of grain, passed three years ago, are so contrived, that, the worse the quality of the corn, the higher is the duty; so that when good wheat runs to 70s. a quarter, the average of all wheat is 57s. or 58s., and the duty 15s. or 14s. a quarter. Thus the corn barometer points to fair when the ship is bending under a storm. CHAP. XLII. 1845. 43. "It is no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty. In 1841 the Free-trade party would have agreed to a duty of Ss. a quarter on wheat, and after a lapse of Concluded. years this duty might have been further reduced and ultimately abolished. But the imposition of any duty at present, without a provision for its extinction in a short period, would but prolong a contest already sufficiently fruitful 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 strong in property, strong in the construction of our legislature, strong in opinion, strong in ancient associations and the memory of immortal services. Let us, then, unite to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of Doubleday, agriculture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, ii. 403, 404. the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people."1 Life of Peel, 44. to a repeal Not less attentive than his rival to the circumstances Approach of the country, Sir R. Peel having received the reports of the Corn from Ireland, which were extremely alarming, brought resignation before the Cabinet the question, What was to be done to Peel. avert the threatened calamity? His own idea was to Laws, and of Sir R. throw the ports at once open by an Order in Council, trusting to Parliament for a bill of indemnity. But his colleagues were divided on the necessity of such an extreme measure, and after several cabinet councils had been held in the beginning of November, it was agreed to appoint a commission to inquire into and suggest measures to avert extreme distress in Ireland, and the Cabinet met on the 25th to consider the reports received. It was found, however, that the former division remained : a minority of the Cabinet, at the head of which was Lord Stanley, deemed the circumstances not yet such as to justify any permanent deviation from the protective policy of Government. Sir R. Peel thought otherwise: he was XLII. 1845. so strongly impressed with the dangers of the approaching CHAP. crisis that he deemed it indispensable to make, not only a temporary but a permanent change of policy. As the Cabinet was divided on this subject, however, and Lord John Russell, by his letter from Edinburgh, already Dec. 6. quoted, had declared for total repeal of the importe ii. duties, and put himself at the head of the Free-trade Lord J. party, he felt the impossibility at such a crisis of carrying Statement; on the government in the face of such a coalition, and lxxxiii. 97; he accordingly tendered his resignation and that of his 1845, 2, 3. colleagues to her Majesty, which was accepted.1 Russell's Parl. Deb. Ann. Reg. Russell to Lord John form a gov. ernment, tion of Sir Cabinet. The Queen immediately sent for Lord John Russell, 45. and he received the royal command on the 8th December, Failure of and reached Osborne House, in the Isle of Wight, on the 11th. His answer to her Majesty, when requested to undertake the formation of a ministry, was, that as and restorathe party to which he belonged was in a minority in the R. Peel's House of Commons, it would be vain for him to attempt a task which would expose her Majesty, ere long, to the inconvenience arising from a second change of servants. He recommended the Queen, accordingly, to send for Lord Stanley, to endeavour to form a Protective ministry; but that nobleman, upon being applied to, declared his absolute inability to do so.* Upon this the Queen renewed her application to Lord John, and showed him a paper which Sir R. Peel had left with her when he resigned office, in which he declared his intention, "in his private capacity, to give every support to the new minister whom her Majesty might select to effect a settlement of the question of the Corn Laws." This entirely altered the case, as it assured the Whig Cabinet of the support of at least one, and that the most powerful, of the great * "I informed her Majesty, that, considering that Lord Stanley, and such of my colleagues as had differed from me, had positively declined to undertake the formation of a government, and that Lord John Russell having had the concurrence and support of all his political friends, with a single exception, had abandoned the attempt to form one, I should feel it my duty, if required by her Majesty, to resume office."-Peel's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 248. XLII. 1845. Dec. 19. Dec. 20. CHAP. Tory party. Lord John accordingly returned to town, to consult his friends on the possibility of forming a Cabinet, and at first there was every prospect of success. But ere long a difficulty, which proved insurmountable, presented itself. Earl Grey, upon being applied to, refused to join the new Cabinet if Lord Palmerston formed part of it so strongly was he impressed with the hazard attending the foreign policy to which the latter noble lord was attached. Lord Palmerston, however, from his ability, and vast diplomatic information and connections, was too powerful a man to be dispensed with. The result was, that this attempt to form a Cabinet failed, and Lord John informed her Majesty of this on the forenoon of the 20th. On the preceding day, the Queen had informed Sir Robert Peel, that, as their political relation was about to terminate, she wished to see him next day to bid him farewell. He went accordingly, in obedience to the royal command ; but, on entering her Majesty's presence, he was informed that Lord John Russell's mission had failed, and that nothing remained but for him to resume office. This he accordingly did, and the whole Cabinet resumed their places, with the exception of Lord Stanley, who retired. He was succeeded by Mr Gladstone as Colonial Secretary; and the Duke of Buccleuch, who at this crisis joined the Free-trade party in the Cabinet, was made President of the Council in room of Lord Wharncliffe, who had died Sir R. Peel's on the 19th. The Cabinet was now entirely composed Parl. Deb. of Free-traders; and the influence of that party in the xxxiii. 89, House of Commons, at the same time, was much increased 98, 106; Ann. Re by the unopposed return of Lord Morpeth to his old seat Chron., for the West Riding of Yorkshire, in room of Mr Stuart Wortley, who succeeded to the peerage on his father Lord Wharncliffe's death.1 1 Peel's Mem. ii. 248, 254; Lord J. Russell and Statements; gister, 1845, 320-1846, 205. While these ministerial difficulties and arrangements, big with the future fate of the British empire and of commerce throughout the world, were in progress in the elevated political regions,, the public mind was violently XLII. 1845. 46. ment of the the Corn Dec. 4. shaken by an announcement, which suddenly appeared in the Times of December 4, to the effect that the repeal of the Corn Laws was resolved on in the Cabinet, and that Parliament would be called together in January to carry Announcethe resolution into effect. This statement was imme- repeal of diately contradicted, in the most unqualified manner, by Laws in the the Standard, and other Tory newspapers; but the Times Times. persisted in maintaining it, adding, that the repeal would be moved in the House of Commons by Sir R. Peel, and in the House of Lords by the Duke of Wellington. This excited a very great sensation, the more especially as it was known that the journal in question had very peculiar sources of information, and enjoyed the confidence, either directly or through the intervention of a third party, of more than one member of the Cabinet. Grain immediately fell, and the spirits of the League rose. They now everywhere announced that they were secure of victory, that they would accept of no compromise, and that "not a shilling nor a farthing should be imposed without sound reason shown." The sudden resignation, and still more sudden reconstruction of Sir R. Peel's Cabinet shortly after, left no doubt as to some great change in the Corn Laws being in contemplation; and it was soon whispered that the Cabinet was now unanimous, and that the "Iron Duke" himself had reluctantly given in. Before Parliament met, on 19th January, it was generally under- Times, stood that the cause of Protection was lost, and the ques- and 7, 1845; tion was set at rest, so far as the Cabinet was concerned, 677; Anu. by the paragraph in the Queen's Speech on the subject, 3, 3. delivered by her Majesty in person.1 1 Dec. 4, 6, Mart. ii. Reg. 1846, Speech. I have to lament," said her Majesty, "that, in con- 47. sequence of a failure of the potato crop in several parts Queen's of the United Kingdom, there will be a deficient supply Jan. 19. of an article of food which forms the chief subsistence of great numbers of my people. The disease by which the plant has been affected has prevailed to the utmost extent in Ireland. I have adopted all such measures as were in |