s well as any statesman of the day.
The Whigs had left the finances of the country in a very bad state, and
Peel had to take sweeping measures to restore credit. From 1842 to 1845
he brought in Budgets of a Free Trade character, designed to encourage
commerce by remitting taxation, especially on raw material; and he made
up the loss thus incurred by the Treasury, by imposing an income-tax. To
this policy there were two exceptions, the Corn Laws and the Sugar
Duties. On the latter he felt that England, since she had abolished
slave-owning, had a duty to her colonies to see that they did not suffer
by the competition of sugar produced by slave labour elsewhere. On the
former he held that England ought, so far as possible, to produce its
own food and to be self-sufficing; and as a practical man he recognized
that it was too much to expect of the agricultural interest, so strongly
represented in both Houses of Parliament, to pronounce what seemed to be
its death-warrant. But through these years he came more and more to see
that the interest of a class must give way to the interest of the
nation; and his clear intellect was from time to time shaken by the
arguments of the Anti-Corn-Law League and its orators. In 1845 he was
probably expecting that he would tide over this Parliament, thanks to
his Budgets and to good harvests, and that at a general election he
would be able to declare for a change of fiscal policy without going
back on his pledges to the party. Meanwhile his general attitude had
been noted by shrewd observers. Cobden himself in a speech delivered at
Birmingham said, 'There can be no doubt that Sir Robert Peel is at heart
as good a Free Trader as I am. He has told us so in the House of Commons
again and again.'

Among the causes which influenced Peel at the moment two are specially
noteworthy as reminding us of the way in which his opinion was changed
over Catholic Emancipation. Severe critics say that, to retain office,
he surrendered to the agitation of Cobden, as he had surrendered to that
of O'Connell. Undoubtedly the increasing size and success of Cobden's
meetings, which were on a scale unknown before in political agitation,
did cause Peel to consider fully what he had only half considered
before: it did help to force open a door in his mind, and to break down
a water-tight compartment. But Peel's mind, once opened, saw far more
than an agitation and a transfer of votes: it looked at the merits of
the qu