the example of which will ultimately ensure that general application of them, which will confer reciprocal benefit on ourselves and all those who are wise enough to follow it."
"It is for our interest to buy cheap, whether other countries will buy cheap or no," was a large admission for a minister who had been peddling to obtain that by treaties which could be had at once by common-sense legislation. Sir Robert said that if the Brazilians chose to pay an artificially high price for cotton and woollen cloths, that was no reason why we should pay a high price for sugar and coffee; and yet he sent out Mr. Ellis to tell them that if they would abandon a part of their folly, we would abandon a part of ours; that if they would cease punishing themselves, we would cease punishing ourselves. From the minister's admissions Mr. Ricardo had been endeavouring to draw out some practical result. He had been repeating Sir Robert Peel's declaration, that "the penalty is on us if we do not buy in the cheapest market;" but the expediency minister clung to his old practice of opposition to his new theory, and found enow of supporters to negative Mr. Ricardo's motion by a majority of about two to one.
Lord Howick ably supported Mr. Ricardo's motion; and as Lord J. Russell took the sarge side, it was concluded that the whigs were preparing to make some nearer approach to free-trade principles than, in their timid and vacillating policy, they had hitherto made. Mr. Cobden, who spoke after Sir Robert Peel, disposed of the whole question in a few pithy sentences:"Let us settle our own duties and our own commercial policy for ourselves; and leave other countries to do the same. The moment they went to Brazil, and asked that government to reduce their duties, they placed themselves at the mercy of every country on the earth. It would be in vain to agitate for a remission of duties at home, if the executive government were to be allowed to go all over the world, creating obstacles, in order to make use of those obstacles, as an argument
