he
meaning of those cheers. I do not now wish to raise a discussion on the
Corn Laws or the Sugar duties, which (I contend) are exceptions from the
general rule."[71] His exceptions were futile, because they were
illogical, which of course he must have known; they were therefore only
meant to reassure, to some extent, the affrighted Protectionist
gentlemen behind him.

The anti-Corn Law League, not accepting the concessions made in 1842 as
final, continued to agitate and insist upon total repeal. They held
meetings, made able speeches, published pamphlets, delivered lectures,
and continued to keep before the English public the iniquity, as they
said, of those laws which compelled the English artizan to eat dear
bread. Sir Robert, as a politician and statesman, watched the progress
of this agitation, as also the effect of the changes made in 1842; and
he tells us he was gradually weakened in his views as to the protection
of British grown corn. "The progress of discussion," he says, "had made
a material change in the opinions of many persons with regard to the
policy of protection to domestic agriculture, and the extent to which
that policy should be carried;"[72] while the success of the changes
made in 1842, falsifying, as they did, all the prophecies of the
Protectionists, tended further to shake his confidence in the necessity
of maintaining those laws.

Since its formation in August, 1841, Sir Robert Peel's Government had
continued to carry its measures through Parliament with overwhelming
majorities; still the question of free trade was making rapid progress
throughout the country, especially in the great towns, the anti-Corn Law
League had become a power, and thoughtful men began to see that the
principle it embodied could not be long resisted in a commercial nation
like England. The Parliamentary Session of 1845 opened with an attempt,
on the part of Lord John Russell, the leader of the Opposition, to
compel the Government to declare its policy on free trade. Sir Robert
Peel was silent, probably because, at the moment, he had no fixed policy
about it; or, if he had, he was not the man to declare it at an
inconvenient time. Great agricultural distress prevailed, a fact
admitted by both sides of the House: the Protectionist members
maintained that it was caused by the concessions already made to free
trade, the free traders, on the contrary, held it to be the result of
the continuance of absurd protective duties.