2,"

LIX® OF CORDEN, [oma®

1845. but the party was not. Even Cobden, when looking ab the
Ar. 41. battle from a distance, thought that it wonld be wrong “ that
the House which was elected to maintain Protection ghould
abandon its pledges and do the very reverse.” Long ste”
wards, when Peel’s Memoirs were given to the world, Cobde?
still held that there would be “much that is difficult ©
reconcile in his conduct in this question, after everything 1
said and confessed that he can urge in his defence.” * Tho
simplest explanation is the true ome. It is a mistake bo
assume that because Peel was a great parliamentary 0%”
meander, he had been mastered by the parliamentary ¥i%
of measuring national welfare by the conveniences of b#
party or the maintenance of a majority in a division. A
colleague of Sir Robert Peel in this Administration, who haf
had unrivalled opportunitiesof seeing great public personsg®™
speaks of him as the most laboriously conscientious * m#”
that he has ever known.! It was his conscience that hed
become involved in the change of commercial policy. He
could, as he believed, and as he afterwards told Cobden him
golf, have parried the power of the League for three or four
gonrs. But he had come to the conviction that the mainte”
nance of restriction was both unsound and dangerous, wal
not only impolitic but unjust. It was impossible for hi Po
conceal his conviction, or to act as if it did not exist. Con
fidence in public men, he said, is shaken when they chang?
their opinions, but confidence ought to- be much mor®
shaken when public men have not the courage to chang?
bheir course when convinced of their error. But why did be
not consult political decorum by allowing Lord John Russel
bo carry repeal, or at least by taking the opinion of she
country ?! Becanse Lord John could not have carried

¢ Letter to J. Parkes, May 26, 1856, «iho
?» « Allowing for differences in grasp and experience,” he went of:
Prince Consort waa in this respect of the same type.” Lb
1 Myr. Disrssll walt much on » eertein incongistensy om thig poi®