the clearness with which they treated the principles which ought to regulate taxation. On Monday, February 24th, Mr. Milner Gibson moved:—"That no arrangement will be satisfactory and permanent, which does not involve an equalization of duty on foreign and colonial sugar." The argument on the part of the free traders was unanswerable. The Nonconformist which, fearing that free trade in corn was not to be obtained without "complete suffrage," was not very apt to praise the Leaguers, said that Mr. Gibson's speech was " crowded with evidence to prove that, by the present discriminating duty, the people of this country are annually taxed to the tune of some £2,800,000, not to eurich her Majesty's exchequer, but to enable non-resident proprietors of colonial estates to maintain a lazy and improvident system of agriculture, the whole profits of which are eaten up by attornies, bailiffs, and overseers. The West Indian proprietors affected to treat the question as an abstract one; but, as Mr. Bright well reminded them, the eagerness they displayed to be present—the earnestness with which they spoke—and the solemnity with which the matter was viewed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proved clearly that, in their estimation, the subject was practical enough. The debate was not a lively one, but the speeches of Lord Howick, of Mr. Cobden, and of Mr. Bright, were able, convincing, and thoroughly out-spoken, The whigs who deemed protection as the bane of agriculture, shunned the House, and ministers entrusted their defence to Sir George Clerk and Mr. Cardwell." The indifference of the late whig ministers and their adherents to the real principles of free trade which they professed to advocate, was shown by the division, the numbers being:—
| Against the motion | 217 |
| For it | 84 |
The importance of the debates in the House of Commons rather increased than diminished the interest which
