general and hearty co-operation which they hare since afforded. Chartist traitors were still enabled to earn the wages of corruption by the disturbance of public meetings. Now, their occupation's gone; or, at any rate, their employers must be easily satisfied if they think they get money's worth out of such agencies. The working people are instructed. They have risen into a perception of their real interests. The fallacy of dear bread and high wages is exploded. Anti-corn-law meetings, in populous places, are not merely secure from interruption, they are sure of enthusiasm. In the metropolis the League, as a distinct and organised body, scarcely showed its face till the present year, It chiefly appeared as merged in the annual Anti-Corn-Law Conference. The series of meetings at the great theatres is wholly unprecedented. They are an event in the record or demonstrations of public opinion.
"Agricultural meetings have taken a new character, Landlords suggest improvements, and tenants hint at rents. Protection is nu longer the infallible panacea, and duties are coming down to a discount. The note of warning and preparation is everywhere sounded, Farmers more than half suspect that they have been taken in, and begin to run restive. A noble chairman is occasionally pelted with awkward questions from remote corners of the room. Successful candidates at cattle shows turn bitter on Sir Robert Peel, and grow ironical on the best bull in Birmingham market.' They reckon it no better than an Irish bull. Adjustment of rents' is gaining currency as a phrase, and coupled with the repeal of the Corn Laws.
"Amongst the most marked features of the change which has taken place, is the complete subsidence of discussion about the merits of the sliding scale. Nobody talks of it; nobody seems to think of it. The time for praising it has entirely gone by. It is hors de combát. Controversy has shifted its ground. Even Mr. Buring, when standing for the city as a Peelite, and supported by all the influence of the government, hinted his preference of a fixed duty. And thus it is that the battle of argument now rages, so far as there is any such battle, between a fixed duty and total abolition. The present system is contemptuously passed over with tacit condemnation. Approaching change is taken for granted. But we cannot believe that the imposition of a fixed duty is at all the nearer on that account. What farmer will have faith in it? Who will speculate on its permanence? Where are the converts to it? Converts from it are all of which we have any intelligence. It would satisfy no party. In the last session of Parliament, Lord John Russell's motion for considering the Corn Laws, with the view of substituting a fixed duty, was supported by just twenty members more than voted for Mr. C. Villiers' notion for such consideration with a view to total repeal. And it was so framed as to allow the total repealers to vote for it.