SIR ROBERT PEEL'S DEFENCE.
79
his position alone which overcame his reluctance to address the house. The motion of Mr. Villiers was fairly stated and proposed; there was no subterfuge involved in it. But he thought that the principle must be applied generally and universally to every article on which a duty was levied. They could not stand on the single article of corn. By the adoption of the motion, they would sound the knell of protection, and they must immediately proceed to apply the principle to practice. This would at once upset the commercial arrangements of the last year. The whole of our colonial system must be swept away, without favour, and without consideration. Could any sane man commit himself to such a course, and trifle with the vast interests of our colonial empire, by the adoption of an abstract resolution? The supporters of the motion ought to act as if they were certain of being in a majority, for it would not be honest to vote for it in the hope of escaping from its consequences by the certainty of being in a minority. Even granting thet our legislation was based on false principles, and ought to be altered, who would adopt the responsibility of its immediate repeal? Confining attention to the trade in corn, he agreed mainly in opinion with Lord John Russell as to the principles by which it should be governed, but he differed with him as to the mole of arriving at them. Mr. Gladstone hed certainly used the word "sinecure, but an unworthy advantage had been taken of it; he was merely arguing that even in dealing with the most obnoxious of exclusive interests compensation was allowed, but he did not class the landlords as 'sinecurists.' The land did beer peculiar burdens, which justified protection; even the malt tax was of the nature of a peculiar incumbrance on the agricultural interest; and though it might be said that it fell on the consumer, the manufacturer would at once feel the peculiar weight of a similar burden, if it were laid on him. A fixed duty on foreign corn, from which domestic corn was exempted, would be, in fact, protection under a mask; and its imposition would not satisfy or silence the anti-corn-law agitation. Why should domestic corn be exempted from such a tax? Did they not tax home-grown barley? The government, in proposing their commercial reforms of last year, had in view the general welfare of the community. He was satisfied with their operation, and he stood by the principles on which these changes had been framed; bat in doing so, he had no concealed or lurking intention of repealing the Corn Law, and he did not contemplate any immediate alteration. Beyond this decided declaration of no present intention to alter the law, he would not go, for he would not commit himself to any commercial law, or make declarations for the sake of conciliating political support. He did not think that the Corn Law was a bad law; it remedied the defects of the preceding one. But he was taunted with having promised that the law would keep prices
