irl.
} SI% ROBERT PREL’S POSITION. 237

Government, as we have seen, had taken from it in a timid snd ~~
blendering way a weapon or two, with which they hoped that ar. 88.
they might be able to'defend their places. Their successor
8Tasped its principles with the hand of a master. “My
OW conviction,” seid Cobden many years afterwards, is
that Peel wes always a Free Trader in theory; in fact, on ail
Politico-economical questions, he was always as sound in
a abstract as Adam Smith or Bentham, For he was pecu-Jarly
 o politico-aconomical, and not a Proteciionist, intellect.
But ho never believed that absolute Free Trade came within
the Category of practical House bf Commons measures. Ib
as & question of numbers with him; and as he was yoked
With 5 majority of inferior animals, he was obliged to go
their bacw, and not his own”?
This is trus of Sir Robert Peel’s mind throughout from
1843 to 1846. But it seems only to be partially true of
the momen when he brought in the great budget of 1842.
Notwithstanding its fatal omiseion of the duoties on corn, ib
V8 & Free Trade budget. Corn was excluded partly from
the leader's foar of the « inferior animals’ whom it was his
bonourape but unhappy mission to drive, but partly also by
80 honest, doybi in Peel’s own mind, whether it was safe to
depend on foreign countries for our supplies. The doubt
Vag Strong enough to warrant him, from his own point of
VOW, in trying an experiment before meddling with corn;
ud a magnificent experiment it was, The financial plan of
1842 wag the begiuning of all the great things that have
been done since, Its cardinal point was the imposition of a
rect tax, in order to relax the commercial tariff. Ultimately
effect of diminishing duties was to increase revenue, but
on effect was a fall in revenue. It was expedient or
“8pentable for the revival of trade to lower or remit duties,
"ud to Parge the tariff, To bridge over the interval before
To J. Parkes, Mev 58, 115K,

1842.