[70

LIFE OF COBDEN,

[omar

1841. tion for the Cabinet to decide, as Lord John Russell describe?
Ar. 37. the situation, “ was whether they would lower duties of #
protective character on a great number of small articles, of
whether they would attack the giant monopolies of sugar, of
timber, and of corn.” They adopted the latter course, bub
in the spirit of Huskisson, and not of Cobden. They pre
ferred an ineffectual approach to Free Trade, to a complete
repeal of protective duties. To touch the differential
duties on sugar was to attack one at least of the strongest
protective interests in Parliament, and every other protected
 interest moved in sympathetic agitation, The more
sanguine of the ministers hoped to beat them by conciliating
the manufacturing interest. This they expected to reach
through the Corn Laws. Lord John Russell moved (May 7) to
abolish the sliding scale of 1828, and to establish instead 8
fixed eight-shilling duty upon wheat.® The battle turned
upon the comparative merits of Free Trade and Protective
duties, and in the special question of the Corn Laws
upon the comparative merits of a graduated and a fixed
duty.
In a debate on a vote of confidence in 1840, Peel seemed
bo have advanced a step from the position which had
irritated the Leaguers in 1839. He still considered #
liberal protection to domestic agriculture indispensables
both in the special interests of agriculture, and the genera!
interests of the community. He did not tie himself to the
details of the existing law; but he maintained that #
graduated duty, varying inversely with the price of corm
was far preferable to a fixed duty. He objected to a fixed
duty on two grounds: first, on account of the great difficulty
of determining the proper amount of it on any satisfactory
data ; secondly, and chiefly, because he foresaw that it would
be impossible to maintain that fixed duty under a very high
8 bs, on rye; 4s. 8d. on barley: 8s. 4d. on outs.