500

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COBDEN. [omar

a week later, it was at once seen that the first favourable
impression had been a mistake, and that they could nob
stand the heavy fire which was now opened upon them by
all the ablest and most experienced men in the House. Al
Mr. Disraeli’s energy, self-possession, and resource were ol
match in defending a plan that was hollow and vicious in
itself, against the forces that were now combined to over
throw him. Among other shifts, he conceived the ides of
detaching the Manchester party from the Whigs and the
Peelites. He asked one of their leaders to call upon him.
“ Protection,” he said to the illustrious Free Trader, “is done
with. That quarrel is ab an end. If you turn us out, you
will only have the Whigs in. And what have the Whigs
done for you? They will never do anything for you.” A$
a matter of fact Lord Palmerston’s manceuvre had made the
Free Traders even less friendly to the Whigs than they had
been before. But it was impossible that Economic Liberals
could support a Budget so fantastic and unsound, It proposed
 to repeal the malt-tax to please the farmers, and then
bo reimburse the exchequer by an increase of the house-ta%
which was of course chiefly payable in the towns. “We don’t
want the Whigs to give us office,” said Mr. Disraeli’s visitor
“We don’t think of that. In any case, we cannot support the
new house-tax. And there are other things in your Budget
which we think wrong.” So the interview came to an end:
Cobden spoke against the Ministerial plan in the course of
the debate, but apparently with rather less power than nsual.
Mr. Disraeli wound up a vehement defence of himself by
an invective against political coalitions, He had himself,
it is true, a few days before been a party to an attempt 0
coalesce with Lord Palmerston. Bug nothing could save
him against the union of Whigs, Peelites, and Economic
Liberals, and he was beaten by a majority of nineteen. The
next day Lord Derby resigned (December 17), and the