The parliamentary strength of a fixed-duty party (regarded exclusively) we take to be little more than this increment of twenty. Oat of the house, the proportion is much smaller. We scarcely know where to find it at all. Total repeal is the principle of the agitation; and the present argument of its advocates is mainly against a fixed duty as the only other alternative to the present system.
"Hopefully, then, shall we enter on the new year. Hopefully; and yet with saddened feelings that justice, however certain in the end, is still delayed. For, as the old proverb has it, while the grass is grow- ing, the steed starves. Every month of delay is the prolongation of indescribable wretchedness. We begin another year of multiplying bankruptcies and blighted hopes; of terrible sufferings and terrible crimes; of overflowing workhouses and blazing barns. Rest the re- sponsibility where it may, it is an awful one. The greater be our exertions. Lancashire and Yorkshire have evinced their zeal nobly. We shall soon have to record the emulation which they excite. The last forlorn hope of monopoly has failed, in the failure of the partial revival of trade, through the comparative cheapness of food, to distract the attention, mistify the minds, or abate the earnestness of corn-law repealers. The League has wintered and summered it, ever making progress. And now for one great effort more, to vindicate the rights of industry, lessen the burdens of poverty, and secure the just recompense of honest labour. Heaven crown it with success!"
