was the disposition not to understand the hint, followed by any cessation of zeal on the part of the applicants.
Parliament was opened on Thursday, 2nd February. There was not much in the Queen's speech to encourage the free traders. Her Majesty regretted the " diminished receipts from some of the ordinary sources of revenue; and feared that it must in part be attributed to the reduced consumption of many articles, caused by that depression of the manufacturing industry of the country which has so long prevailed, and which her Majesty had so deeply lamented." There was no indication either in the speech or in the short debate, of any measure to remove that depression which had so long prevailed and was so much lamented.
In the debate in the Commons, on the address, February 3rd, Mr. Villiers asked whether Sir Robert Peel had meant, in his speech of the previous evening, to declare himself against all change in the Corn Law. Sir Robert said that protection had hitherto been the rule, and that rule would be observed if ever there should be any change. This declaration of the minister gave considerable alarm to the agriculturists; but, on consideration, they felt that his hold on office depended on their support; and that, notwithstanding his refusal to bind himself irrevocably to their monopoly, he was bound fast enough by their will.
On the following Thursday, Lord Stanhope moved in the Lords for a committee to consider the condition of the productive classes, whose distress he attributed to the new tariff, the Corn Law, and machinery! Lord Brougham ridiculed the arguments of Lord Stanhope, and then blamed the conduct of the Anti-Corn-Law League as injurious to a good cause, and expressed himself as indignantly against strong language as if he never, during his long and previously useful public life, had used any himself. On the division there were only 29 votes, of which 26 were against the motion.
