292
AGREEMENT BETWEEN LEADERS.
denounced protection as the bane and not the support of agriculture, and had prophecied that two or three bad harvests would cause such popular excitement as would force a change in spite of all resistance. "When there was such an agreement between the leaders of parties as to the general principle, why did they not unite, and at once repeal the Corn Laws? Sir Robert Peel had modified them, and his modification must have a fair trial. Lord John Russell still clung to his shibboleth of a small fixed duty for revenue. And thus the two factions, at variance on almost everything else, each struggling to drive the other out of office, combined to sacrifice the interests of the public, which both professed to be most anxious to promote!
