fix] THE BEVOLUTION OF 1848. 479

1850 contain by much the most penetrating and effective 1848.
"Xamination that the great Socialist writers in France have Zr. 44
“Yer received.
This memorable year was an unfavourable moment for
Cobden’s projects, but the happy circumstance that Great
Britain alone passed through the political cyclone without any
thing more formidable than Mr. Smith O’Brien’s insurrection
0 Ireland, and the harmless explosion of Chartism on Ken-Uington
 Common, was too remarkable for men not to seek to
*%plain it. The explanation that commended itself to most
Observers was that Free Trade had both mitigated the pressure
of those economic evils which had provoked violent risings
W other countries, and that, besides this, it had removed
fom the minds of the English workmen the sense that the
BOvernment was oppressive, unjust, or indifferent to their
Wellbeing, « My beliefs,” said Sir Robert Peel, in a powerful
 speech which he made the following yesr, vindicating his
*ommercial policy, “that yon have gained the confidence and
Bood will of a powerful class in this country by parting with
that which was thought to be directly for the benefit of the
landed interest. I think it was that confidence in the gene-“osity
 and justice of Parliament, which in no small degree
®nabled you to pass triumphantly through the storm that
®onvulsed other countries during the year 1848.” *
The Protectionist party bad not yet accepted defeat, nor
iq they finally accept it until they came into power in 1852.
all through the year that intervened they turned nearly
8very debate into a Protectionist debate. After Lord
George Bentinck’s death in the autumn of 1848, they were
led in the House of Commons by Mr. Disraeli, whose persistent
 and andacious patience was inspired by the seeming

* July 6, 1849, This comprobensive defence of Free Trade is well worth
eating af the present dey, when the same fallacies which Peel them
Sxpousd have come to life again.