n and on as to what was
right and fair under the circumstances.

In January 1842, as the session approached, they came to close quarters.
The details of all the mysteries of protectionist iniquity we may well
spare ourselves. Peel, feeling the pulse of his agricultural folk,
thought it would never do to give them less than a ten-shilling duty,
when the price of wheat was at sixty-two shillings the quarter; while
Mr. Gladstone thought a twelve-shilling duty at a price of sixty far too
low a relief to the consumer. His eyes were beginning to be opened.

_Feb. 2._--I placed in Sir R. Peel's hands a long paper on the corn
law in the month of November, which, on wishing to refer to it, he
could not find; and he requested me to write out afresh my argument
upon the value of a rest or dead level, and the part of the scale
of price at which it should arrive; this I did.

On Monday I wrote another paper arguing for a rest between 60/ and
70/ or thereabouts; and yesterday a third intended to show that the
present law has been in practice _fully_ equivalent to a
prohibition up to 70/. Lord Ripon then told me the cabinet had
adopted Peel's scale as it originally stood--and seemed to doubt
whether _any_ alteration could be made. On his announcing the
adoption, I said in a marked manner, '_I am very sorry for
it_'--believing that it would be virtual prohibition up to 65/ or
66/ and often beyond, to the minimum; and not being able, in spite
of all the good which the government is about to do with respect to
commerce, to make up my mind to support such a protection. I see,
from conversations with them to-day, that Lord Ripon, Peel, and
Graham, are all aware the protection is greater than is necessary.

MR. GLADSTONE'S RAPID ADVANCE

This mood soon carried the vice-president terribly far. On Feb. 5 he met
most of the members of the cabinet at Peel's house. He argued his point
that the scale would operate as virtual protection up to seventy
shillings, and in a private interview with Peel afterwards hinted at
retirement. Peel declared himself so taken by surprise that he hardly
knew what to say; 'he was thunderstruck;' and he told his young
colleague that 'the retirement of a person holding his office, on this
question, immediately before his introducing it, would endanger the
existence of the administration, and that he