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i LABYY, 347

“Ipation, and Sir Robert Peel in repealing the Corn Laws, 1846.
®noeded necessary measures ~f progress, but they broke up Zr. 41.
the Party. 1 passed Household Suffrage, but I kept the party
“gether and brought it into power.” It has often been
Contendeq by contemporaries with good information as to
the state of things, that Peel would have been as successful
% Mr. Disraeli afterwards was, in getting hig party through
awkward gap, if he had only consented to call them
together and had candidly laid before them the political con-“erations
 on which his new policy was founded. Those
"ho hold this opinion are possibly right. It is, however, easy
fo perceive that Peel’s situation was distinguished by two
fata} Peculiarities. One was that he had gone through the
"6 process before : he had already done by Protestantism
® he wag now doing by Protection ; he had suddenly carried
°% a policy of which he bad been the declared and con
*Plcuoug opponent. If was the champion of Protestantism
Ad the Church, who had repealed the Test and Corporation
3 8, who had carried Catholic Emancipation, who had
creased the Maynooth Grant, and who was believed to be
Reditating the endowment of the Irish priests. Feats of
this kind do not bear repetition. In the second place, it was
“liparatively easy to persuade the Conservatives to assent
toa lower franchise, because few of them in their hearts
believeq that any manipulation of the suffrage would take
"Way from them anything which they really valued. Very
any of them, on the other hand, did believe firmly that the
Peal of the Corn Laws would take away from them their
"eng, which they valued extremely. Political plansibilities
"Ul reconcile men to everything, save the deprivation of
oir Property. It seems doubtful then whether Sir Robert
%l could under any circumstances have prevailed npon his
Party to follow him. Itis not to their dishonour that it
hou) have been so The Minister was honestly convinced,