The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-01-06 00:00:00

WILL THE GOVERNMENT REPEAL THE
CORN LAWS?

(From Frazer's Magazine.)

Whatever may be the opinions of men out of doors,
there is no disputing the fact that the present House of
Commons is, by a great majority, made up of members
who stand pledged to their constituences to protect the
agricultural interests. The Lords, likewise, are, almost
to a man, opposed to any further interference with the
Corn-laws ; indeed, there needed all the skill of Peel and
all the moral influence of Wellington to lead their lord-
ships forward, even amid the dangers of 1842, to the point
at which they no longer make a secret that they are de-
termined to stop. Are we to suppose that Sir Robert
Peel, knowing all this, knowing that it was the agricul-
tural constituencies which brought him into office—his
fixed duty scheme and nothing else having sent Lord
John Russell into opposition—are we to suppose that Sir
Robert Peel, with these truths patent before him, has
ever meditated a step so wild as the recommendation by
the crown of an unconditional and immediate repeal of
the Corn-laws ? The idea is quite monstrous. Sir Robert
may regret, as many other good and wise men do, that
such laws ever had existence. He may wish that it were
possible to get rid of them, and cherish the belief that
their repeal would effect changes neither so ruinous as
their advocates apprehend, nor so advantageous for com-
merce as is assumed by their assailants. But he cannot
fail to be aware, that to repeal them in the lump is not
possible, except on peril of the very existence of the con-
stitution. Now Sir Robert Peel may be as resolute a po-
litician as you please, but he is not a revolutionist. He
is not prepared to array one House of Parliament against
the other, even if he were sure of carrying the Commons
along with him, far less to coerce the Lords by pitch-
forking or threatening to pitchfork 100 members at the
least into the chamber. Yet, without some such pro-
cedure, we question whether any minister would be able
to carry a bill for free trade in corn ; for we know that a
good hundred peers at least would be necessary to equal-
ize the strength of parties in the upper house of parlia-
ment.

Again, it is no secret to Sir Robert Peel, that however
free he may stand in his own person from all pledges one
way or another, his party accepted him for their leader,
and followed him with an enthusiasm which has no
parallel in the history of political warfare—for this single
reason, that they put faith in him as the advocate of the
views—fiscal, religious, and economic—which they them-
selves entertained. Had their confidence in regard to
these matters been less surely fixed, there would have
been no rally worth the name from the defeat of 1833.
Doubtless the incapacity of the Melbourne administra-
tion to carry on the detail business of the country must
have made itself felt sooner or later ; and, in the common
course of things, the powers of the executive would have
passed from one set of hands to another, till somebody
was found of sufficient judgment to wield them. But
there would have been no such industry or ready expen-
diture of time and money in watching the registration
courts, and seeing that the lists of voters were full, as
has brought us round, iv point of public feeling, well-nigh
to what we used to be ere the Reform Act passed. Sir
Robert Peel cannot forget this; no, nor the one great
rallying cry which ach'eyed it. He has tried his party
pretty well, it must be confessed. They have given up
much tor him in various ways—much of Protestant pre-
judice, since it is the fashion so to speak of that which
our fathers used to call a holy principle; consenting to
his Charitable Bequests-bill, to his alaynooth Endow-
ment-bill, and bearing with astonishing fortitude the li-
beralism which dismisses gentlemen from the bench of
magistrates on no other grounds than that their attach-
ment to the constitution in Church and State is excessive.
They have seen the amount of protection offered to the
British corn-grower cut down to a figure which no other
statesman than he could have presented, and are suffer-
ing, some of them not very patiently, under the pressure
of an income-tax which they owe to his boldness. Let
them have reason to apprehend that he means to go far-
ther, and there will be an end at once to their confidence.
And then where is he—ay, and where is the country ?
Sir Robert Peel knows all this. He may regret that the
public temper should be what it is. He may feel the re-
straints of party gall and hamper him sorely, and, in his
more earnest moments, he may come to the determination
of breaking through them. But he cannot break through
them. Neither he nor any other man living can govern
this great country except by a party, for the attempt to
do otherwise will overwhelm in one common ruin both
the individual who makes it and the constitution.

Lastly, Sir Robert Peel has some knowledge of human
nature, and does not, therefore, need us to tell him that
men who cannot be brought to fight for anything else,
will fight like lions for their breeches pockets. Now the
agriculturists may be right or they may be wrong, but it
is past dispute that the conviction has established itself
among them, that the repeal of the Corn-laws would re-
duce the incomes of landowners by one-third at the least,
besides throwing an immense quantity of the land of the
country out of cultivation. We know, indeed, of our
own personal knowledge, many tenants-at-will, the occu-
piers of enormous farms, who are so satisfied of the mis-
chievous working of a repeal measure, that nothing would
induce them to accept at this moment leases from their
landlords. Their argument is this, "We are doing well
enough now ; arid, if we could be insured against any fur-
ther tampering with the Corn-laws, we should be happy
to engage to pay the same amount of rent that we are pay-
ing now, for as many years as our landlords might pro-
pose ; but, whether rightly or wrongly, we are convinced
of the impossibility of competing, on our present terms,
with the foreign grower, and are, therefore, prepared to
throw up our farms the moment the ports are opened,

and to Wye in idleness till things find their level." Now,
with such a prospect before them, is it reasonable to ex-
pect that the landlords of England will consent, whether
they he peers or commoners, to an immediate and total
repeal of the Corn-laws ? Can they afford to exist on
two-thirds of their present income, making good the en-
gagements to which their estates are liable ? and if they
could, who will undertake to guarantee even two-thirds
of their income from the outset? No one. A sudden
opening of the ports, an abrupt repeal of the Corn-laws,
would tend as surely to anarchy for a while as the wiping
out of the national debt; and five years of anarchy,
through the throwing up of leases or the breaking of te-
nants—and we cannot anticipate less—would suffice to
make beggars of the representatives of all the beat families
in the kingdom. Can it surprise us to learn that the
landlords are determined to resist a sudden repeal to the
death ? and seeing that in their ruin the ruin of the pea-
sants, at all evens, must be involved, is the driving of such
a body of men to desperate measures a contingency to be
thought of without horror ?
Whatever changes Sir Robert Peel's plan may involve
—that is, supposing him to have a plan in preparation—
we are on these grounds satisfied that he cannot contem-
plate either the unconditional or the immediate repeal of
laws amid which all the domestic arrangements of all the
landed proprietors and cultivators of the kingdom have
for the last five-and-thirty years been formed. And we
come to this conclusion, not only from contemplating the
effects which such a procedure must have upon the social
condition of a very large portion of our population, but
from a perusal of the arguments of those who endeavour,
by fair means and by foul, to push the change onwards.
Whatever our private opinions may be in regard to the
wisdom of a protective system in connexion with the corn-
trade, we can never consent that the policy of England's
prime minister shall be forced upon him by the Anti-
Corn-Law League; and we are inclined to believe that
the majority of the aristocracy—of the Whig aristocracy
not less than of the Tory—are of our way of thinking.
Messrs. Cobden and Bright, in the fervour of their anti-
cipated triumph, let out a little too much for the good of
the cause which they advocate, at the great Covent Gar-
den meeting. The English people entertain a profound
respect for the hereditary peerage ; they would not ex-
change so noble an institution even for Mr. Cobden's
services, were he called to the Queen's councils, and in-
vited to bring in an abolition-bill as Secretary of State for
the Home Department to-morrow. Besides, the people
of England must be more gullable than we take them to
be, if they are persuaded to believe that an order of things
can be very injurious to trade and manufactures under
which the great apostle of the repeal of the Corn laws has
contrived to work his way from the condition of a poor
farmer's son in Sussex, to the ownership of mills, the
profits on which are rated to the income tax at an amount
so enormous, that we are really afraid to particularise it.
And now a word or two to all right thinking men,—to
those among our readers who value the country's well-
being above such minor considerations as the question
who shall or who shall not preside in her majesty's coun-
cils, and be called prime minister. We witnessed with
regret the unbecoming haste with which immediately The
Times' rumour got afloat, some who ought to have known

better proceeded at once to condemn-and denounce the
recreant premier. This was neither just nor wise. Sir
John Tyrrell, and other equally respectable, though some-
what hot-tempered gentlemen, have no ground as yet—
none with which we, at least are acquainted—for coming
to the conclusions at which, with extraordinary precipi-
tation, they arrived. They would have done better had
they waited, as we recommended others of the party to
do, till Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues—who continue
in office, and their friends who quit it—shall have made
their explanations. If, indeed, The Times be correct in
its assumptions, then each man,,whether a member of
parliament or not, will be free to take his own line. The
unflinching advocates for protection will, of course, resist
whatever attempts are made to diminish or in any other
way to interfere with it ; while such of them as take plea-
sure in dealing out hard names and bitter words may,
with a better grace than now, give license both to their
pens and to their tongues. At the same time one point
there is peculiar to the crisis at which we have arrived,
which seems to demand their serious attention. Sup-
posing they defeat Sir Robert Peel, and drive him out of
office (no bard matter to do, it would appear, seeing that

he would have voluntarily resigned, if he had been per-
mitted), are they prepared with any one to take his place,
who shall prove acceptable to the crown, and of sufficient
weight, personal or otherwise, to go down with the con-
stituencies ? They cannot look to the Whigs, that is clear.
The Whigs have done their best to form an administra-
tion, and failed ; neither, we presume, will they conde-
scend to make terms with Mr. Cobden, or Mr. Bright, or
Mr. O'Connell. Will the Duke of Richmond be invited
to form an administration ? and if he do, will the country
support him ?

We cannot tell, but this much we venture to hope, that
the actual measures of the existing cabinet will be found
much less alarming than the sanguine on either aide an-
ticipated ; and, at all events, we advise our readers to
suspend their judgments,ps we here undertake to suspend
our own, till the mystery in which the proceedings of the
last month are involved shall be dispelled ; and there are
some sure grounds on which either to support or condemn
the man whom, for ten years or more, the great Conser-
vative party has, both in opposition and in power, honoured
as its champion.

One of the severest penalties to which criminals in
Holland were, in ancient timeslcondsmned, was, to be
deprived of the use of salt.