haps could do nothing.The sun was shining, and there was never to be a rainy day again.
The free-trade members in the Commons had not been strengthened by the country, and therefore fought under great disadvantage. Mr. Hume, with the resolution to do right whatever support he might have, had given notice, that, on the 6th of March, he would move for a committee, with the view of substituting a fixed duty on corn, in lieu of the fluctuating scale. The landowners mustered in great force to oppose it. Sir James Graham declared his firm conviction to be, that whenever such a scheme as that proposed should take place, it would not be the destruction of one particular class in the state, but of the state itself. Mr. Feargus O'Connor said that to admit corn duty free, would be the ruin of Ireland. Lord Morpeth (now the Earl of Carlisle), the first of after-converts of his class, supported the motion, as did Lord Howick (now Earl Grey), and some of his relatives. Lord Althorp pleaded that there was no present exigency—agriculture was depressed and manufactures were prosperous, and the change proposed could not improve the condition of the latter. Mr. Poulett Thomson, notwithstanding his position in the ministry, made a bold and masterly speech in favour of the motion, in which he most unmercifully demolished the arguments of Sir James Graham. He advised the house to legislate then, when they could do so with calmness, deliberation, and wisdom. "Let them wait," he said, "until one of those fluctuations should, under Providence, occur, through a failure of the harvest in France, and then a change of the Corn Laws would be called for in much less respectful language than he should ever wish to hear addressed to that house." The prophetic warning was disregarded. The monopolists had mustered for the occasion, and the cabinet took them under its protecting wing. Amongst the majority were almost all the Irish members, who, by refusing to sanction a poor law, and
