members of the League were deputed last Thursday to visit Ashton-under-Lyne, Stalybridge, Dukinfield, Godley, and Hyde, to obtain subscriptions towards its object—the total repeal of the Corn Law. They had not one refusal from whig or tory, men of all political parties expressing their warmest wishes for the utter destruction of the monopoly. In that one day, in that comparatively narrow district, the deputation received subscriptions to the amount of £1,650." The same district made much heavier contributions afterwards when much wider operations made them necessary; but a contribution of 1,650 in one day, when ministers were promising an eight shilling duty, in the belief that it would be satisfactory to the Leaguers, and when their supporters were everywhere earnestly recommending a prompt acceptance of the offered concession, and designating as "impracticables all who did not thankfully declare for the compromise, pretty strongly proved that ministers had been too late with their onward movement.
The Whig Budget of 1841, though falling short of the requirements of justice in the matter of a great necessity of life, and of the immediate wants of a people reduced to great depth of distress, was a bold approach to the principles of a liberal commercial policy, the benefits of which had been elicited by the Import Duties Committee. The financial accounts for the year showed a heavy deficit which it was proposed to make good, not by the levying of new taxes, but, by lessening duties which burdened commerce, and diminished consumption. The duties on the importation of corn, in lieu of the sliding scale, would have made a considerable addition to the revenue. The protectionists set themselves determinedly against this modification of the old law, most unwisely, for duties productive to the exchequer would have been retentively held by every successive administration. On sugar, prohibition was to be exchanged for protection ; the produce of Cuba and Brazil was to be admitted to such competition with the
