results of the repeal of the Customs duties, as far as they had yet gone, and recommended to parliament the consideration whether the repeal of restrictions might not be carried yet further; whether there might not still be a remission "of the existing duties upon many articles the produce or manufacture of other countries." In the House of Lords much bitterness was manifested by the protectionists at the prospects before them, many bitter denunciations of the League; and the Duke of Richmond, in his spleen, asked why ministers did not make Mr. Cobden a peer, and place him on the Treasury bench in the House of Lords?
In the Commons the scene was exceedingly animated, and the House was crowded in expectation of hearing Sir Robert Peel's explanations, Lord Francis Egerton in moving the address, declared that his own opinions on the Corn Laws, had undergone an entire alteration, and he implored the house to bring about "a full, satisfactory, and final settlement of the question." Mr. Beckett Denison, as seconder, said, that experience had "driven" him to the same conclusion, Sir Robert Peel then rose, and the full gaze and attention of the House were rivetted. upon him. He acknowledged that the prospects of famine in Ireland had been the subject of the frequent Cabinet consultations; but he said it would be unfair to make that cause occupy the prominent place. The laws which regulated the importation of Food, were the primary, the grand subject of the deliberations of a reluctant Cabinet. On the question of the Corn Law, his opinion had undergone a complete change! This announcement was received with triumphant cheering from the opposition benches, with profound silence from the ministerial. Then the prime minister proceeded, with great ability, to show that all the grounds on which "protection to native industry" was advocated, had been proved to be wholly untenable, Very deliberately adopting the speeches of
