afternoons. Besides my mind has been more than ever upon the worry about that affair which is to come off after the Corn Bill is settled, and about which I hear all sorts of reports. You must therefore excuse me if I could not sit down to write a letter of news.

I

thought the Corn Bill would certainly be read the third time on Tuesday (to-morrow), but I now begin to think it will be put off till Thursday. There is literally no end to this suspense. But there are reports of Peel being out of office on Friday next, and the peers may yet ride restive."

"June 26th. To Mrs. Cobden: My Dearest KateHurrah! Hurrah! the Corn Bill is law, and now my work is done. I shall come down to-morrow morning by the six o'clock train in order to be present at a Council meeting at three, and shall hope to be home in time for a late tea."

A CORN-LAW RHYME

[Ebenezer Elliott, "The Corn-Law Rhymer," contributed to the agitation such "Songs" as this.]

Child, is thy father dead?

Father is gone!

Why did they tax his bread?

God's will be done!

Mother has sold her bed;

Better to die than wed!

Where shall she lay her head?
Home we have none!

Father clammed thrice a week

God's will be done!

Long for work did he seek,

Work he found none;

Tears on his hollow cheek

Told what no tongue could speak!
Why did his master break?

God's will be done!

Doctor said air was best-
Food we had none;
Father with panting breast
Groaned to be gone;
Now he is with the blest-

Mother says death is best!
We have no place of rest—
Yes, we have one!

VI. SIR ROBERT PEEL

[On the night when the bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws came up for its passage in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, who had been elected on a protectionist "platform," concluded the debate in a powerful speech, which culminated in these impressive sentences.]

THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS (1846)

This night is to decide between the policy of continued relaxation of restriction, or the return to restraint and prohibition. This night you will select the motto which is to indicate the commercial policy of England. Shall it

be "advance" or "recede"? Which is the fitter motto for this great empire? Survey our position, consider the advantage which God and nature have given us, and the destiny for which we are intended. We stand on the confines of western Europe, the chief connecting link between the Old World and the New. The discoveries of science, the improvement of navigation, have brought us within ten days of St. Petersburg, and will soon bring us within ten days of New York. We have an extent of coast greater in proportion to our population and the area of our land than any other great nation, securing to us maritime strength and superiority. Iron and coal, the sinews of manufacture, give us advantages over every rival in the great competition of industry. Our capital far exceeds that which they can command.

In ingenuity, in skill, in energy, we are inferior to none. Our national character, the free institutions under which we live, the liberty of thought and action, an unshackled press, spreading the knowledge of every discovery and of every advance in science-combine with our natural and physical advantages to place us at the head of those nations which profit by the free interchange of their products. And is this the country to shrink from competition? Is this the country to adopt a retrograde policy? Is this the country which can only flourish in the sickly, artificial atmosphere of prohibition? Is this the country to stand shivering on the brink of exposure to the healthful breezes of competition?

Choose your motto. "Advance" or "recede." Many countries are watching with anxiety the selection you may make. Determine for "advance," and it will be the watchword which will animate and encourage in every

state the friends of liberal commercial policy. Sardinia has taken the lead. Naples is relaxing her protective duties and favoring British produce. Prussia is shaken in her adherence to restriction. The government of France will be strengthened; and backed by the intelligence of the reflecting, and by conviction of the real welfare of the great body of the community, will perhaps ultimately prevail over the self-interest of the commercial and manufacturing aristocracy which now predominates in her chambers. Can you doubt that the United States will soon relax her hostile tariff, and that the friends of a freer commercial intercourse-the friends of peace between the two countries-will hail with satisfaction the example of England?

This night, then-if on this night the debate shall close you will have to decide what are the principles by which your commercial policy is to be regulated. Most earnestly, from a deep conviction, founded not upon the limited experience of three years alone, but upon the experience of the results of every relaxation of restriction and prohibition, I counsel you to set the example of liberality to other countries. Act thus, and it will be in perfect consistency with the course you have hitherto taken. Act thus, and you will provide an additional guarantee for the continued contentment, and happiness, and well-being of the great body of the people. Act thus, and you will have done whatever human sagacity can do for the promotion of commercial prosperity.

You may fail. Your precautions may be unavailing. They may give no certain assurance that mercantile and manufacturing prosperity will continue without interruption. It seems to be incident to great prosperity that

there shall be a reverse—that the time of depression shall follow the season of excitement and success. That time of depression must perhaps return; and its return may be coincident with scarcity caused by unfavorable seasons. Gloomy winters, like those of 1841 and 1842, may again set in. Are those winters effaced from your memory? From mine they never can be.

These sad times may recur.

.

"The years of plenteousness may have ended," and "the years of dearth may have come"; and again you may have to offer the unavailing expressions of sympathy, and the urgent exhortations to patient resignation.

When you are again exhorting a suffering people to fortitude under their privations, when you are telling them, "These are the chastenings of an all-wise and merciful Providence, sent for some inscrutable but just and beneficent purpose, it may be, to humble our pride, or to punish our unfaithfulness, or to impress us with the sense of our own nothingness and dependence on His mercy," when you are thus addressing your suffering fellow-subjects, and encouraging them to bear without repining the dispensations of Providence, may God grant that by your decision of this night you may have laid in store for yourselves the consolation of reflecting that such calamities are, in truth, the dispensations of Providencethat they have not been caused, they have not been aggravated, by laws of man, restricting, in the hour of scarcity, the supply of food!