e stronghold of
Protection, and he knew enough of the men who sat behind him to be fully
alive to the fact that they still clung tenaciously to the fallacies
which Adam Smith had exploded. 'We had ill luck,' were Lord Aberdeen's
words to the Queen; 'if it had not been for the famine in Ireland, which
rendered immediate measures necessary, Sir Robert would have prepared
the party gradually for the change.'[14]

[Sidenote: THE 'EDINBURGH LETTER']

Cobden, it is only fair to state, made no secret of his conviction that
the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was safer in the hands of
Sir Robert than of Lord John. Peel might be less versed in
constitutional questions, but he was more in touch with the
manufacturing classes, and more familiar with economic conditions. Sir
Robert, however, was sore let and hindered by the weaklings of his own
Cabinet, and the rats did not disguise their intention of quitting the
ship. Lord John Russell, who was spending the autumn in Scotland, was
the first 'responsible statesman' to take decisive action, for whilst
Peel, hampered by the vacillation and opposition of his colleagues,
still hesitated, Russell took the world into his confidence in his
historic 'Edinburgh Letter,' dated November 22, 1845, to his
constituents in London. It was a bold and uncompromising declaration of
policy, for the logic of events had at length convinced Lord John that
any further delay was dangerous. He complained that Her Majesty's
Ministers had not only met, but separated, without affording the nation
any promise of immediate relief. He pointed out that the existing duties
on corn were so contrived that, the worse the quality of the wheat, the
higher was the duty. 'When good wheat rises to seventy shillings a
quarter, the average price of all wheat is fifty-seven or fifty-eight
shillings, and the duty fourteen or fifteen shillings a quarter. Thus
the corn barometer points to fair, while the ship is bending under a
storm.' He reviewed the course of recent legislation on the subject, and
declared that he had for years endeavoured to obtain a compromise. He
showed that Peel had opposed in 1839, 1840, and 1841, even qualified
concession, and he added the stinging allusion to that statesman's
attitude on other great questions of still earlier date. 'He met the
proposition for diminished Protection in the same way in which he had
met the offer of securities for Protestant interests in 1817 and
1825--in the s