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Price of corn, and that if it were once withdrawn, there would
be extreme difficulty in re-imposing it.
He now, in 1841, repeated what he had said the previous
year. ¢ Notwithstanding the formidable combination which
bas been formed against the Corn Laws,” he said, “notwithstanding
 the declarations that either the total repeal or
the Substitution of a fixed duty for the present scale, is the
Wevitable result of the agitation now going forward, I do
Rot hesitate to avow my adherence to the opinion which I
®xpressed last year, and now again declare, that my preference
 i decidedly in favour of a graduated scale rather
than any fixed duty.”
Lord Melbourne had foreseen the fate of his Chancellor’
budget. He was shrewd enough to be sure that a half-Measure
 could never raise up so many friends among the
Manufacturers as to outweigh the united force of the agricultural
 and colonial interests.* In fact, no friends were raised
Zp. No great body was conciliated, nor attracted, nor even
“ouched with friendly interest; and the chief reason for this
Stubborn apathy was, as Sir Robert Peel said, that nobody
believed that the proposals of Ministers sprang from their
Spontaneous will, or that they had been adopted in consedence
 of the deliberate convictions of those who brought
them forward, The conversion was too rapid. Only two
Years bad gone since the Prime Minister had declared in his
Place that the repeal of the Corn Laws would be the most
"sane Proposition that ever entered a human head. Lord
Palmerston made a fine speech against the system of probective
 duties; but men remembered that, two years
beiore, he hed voted against Mr, Villiers’s motion to hear
ne Members of the Manchester Association at the bar of
® House, And the motives of so speedy a change were
$00 plain.

1841.
Zr. 87.

‘ Torrens’ Infs of Mslbowurne, ii. 858.