(Loud cheers.) I will reserve to myself the unfettered power of judging what will be for the public interest. I do not desire to be the Minister of England; but while I am Minister of England I will hold office by no servile tenure (loud cheers); I will hold office unshackled by any other obligation than that of consulting the public interests, and providing for the public safety." (Continued cheering.)

For some time before the opening of Parliament, curiosity was awakened as to who was likely to fill the vacant position of leader of the Protectionists in the House; and as they were barren in orators, a witty diplomatist remarked that it would only be a fat-cattle opposition that would be arrayed against Sir R. Peel, and that they would be able to prolong the debate for two nights only. A most unlikely personage stepped into the breach, for he had devoted most of his time and attention to speculating on the turf. It was no other than the member for King's Lynn, Lord George Bentinck, who had a quick perception, energetic disposition, prompt in decision, but had not the qualifications for an orator. His dark-brown eyes, however, soon fell upon Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, the son of the well-known author of the "Curiosities of Literature," who he knew had a ready tongue and a cunning brain. He induced him to become his ally, and the old leader was bitterly attacked.

On the 27th of January the Strangers' Gallery of the House of Commons was crowded, and the passages and the streets to the House were hardly passable. There were not less than 400 members of Parliament in their seats, and the seats below the bar were filled with Peers and other distinguished visitors. Prince Albert, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Earl of Jersey were present. Sir Robert Peel, in the midst of great interest, unfolded the ministerial plan of Free Trade. Its chief characteristic was the elaborate attempt at equalisation. It embraced every class, and touched every article. The debate was adjourned to the 9th of February, and was continued on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 16th. On the latter date Sir Robert Peel rose about a quarter to ten o'clock, and spoke till one o'clock, delivering a most powerful and earnest speech with remarkable grace, which seemed to entrance his auditors.

FREE TRADE DEBATE IN THE HOUSE.

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"These sad times may recur," said Sir Robert Peel. "The years of plenteousness may have ended and the years of dearth may have come; and again you may have to offer the unavailing expressions of sympathy and the urgent exhortations to patient resignation. Commune with your own hearts and answer me this question: Will your assurances of sympathy be less consolatory, will your exhortations to patience be less impressive, if, with your willing consent, the Corn Law shall have then ceased to exist? Will it be no satisfaction to you to reflect that by your own act you have been relieved of the grievous responsibility of regulating the supply of food? (Cheers.) Will you not then cherish with delight the reflection that, in this the present hour of comparative prosperity, yielding to no clamour, impelled by no fear-except, indeed, that provident fear which is the mother of safety-you had anticipated the evil day, and, long before its advent, had trampled on every impediment to the free circulation of the Creator's bounty? (Cheers.) When you are again exhorting a suffering people to fortitude under their privations; when you are telling them These are the chastenings of an all-wise and merciful Providence, sent for some inscrutable but just and beneficent purpose-it may be, to humble our pride, or to punish our unfaithfulness, or to impress us with the sense of our nothingness and dependence on His mercy;'-when you are thus addressing your fellow-subjects, and encouraging them to bear without repining the dispensations of Providence, may God grant that by your decision of this night you may have laid in store for yourselves the consolation of reflecting that such calamities are, in truth, the dispensation of Providence-that they have not been caused, they have not been aggravated, by laws of man restricting in the hour of scarcity the supply of food." (Loud and prolonged cheering.)

The following evening, the 17th of February, the debate was resumed, and its great feature was that the most prominent members of the League broke silence. At this time Mr. Cobden was seriously ill through over-exhaustion and a severe cold, which brought on nervous pains in the side of the head and terminated in an abscess. Upon Mr. Bright therefore devolved the task of expressing the intentions of the Free-traders. In one journal the scene was thus described:" The singularity of his position as he rose to address the (miscalled) Oppositionists and Ministerialists, seemed to animate him to an unwonted pitch of rhetorical excellence; his periods were, as usual, adroitly and elegantly turned; but, in addition to this, they alternately glittered with satire and burnt with energy, and thrilled with a tone even occasionally pathetic. Nor was there anything forced or conventional in his speech; he became effective without apparent labour, and never appeared to strive for the attention of his auditors. And, indeed, this very aspect of being spontaneous and unaffected lent to each opinion its principal interest. There is something absolutely noble, there is something admirable, there is something great, in the pure and generous eloquence with which the hon. member

eulogised his former antagonist, the courageous, the large-spirited, and now popular Sir Robert Peel."

The hon. member for Bristol said that the farmers of England would not consent to sell cheap corn and buy dear sugar (hear, hear), and the hon. member for Lincolnshire had stated at a meeting lately held in Willis's Rooms, that the colonies of England had been protected at a heavy expense to the English farmer. (Hear, hear.) From this he gathered it to be the opinion of honourable gentlemen opposite that it was not fair to give protection to the colonial sugar grower if protection be withdrawn from the British grower of corn. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) He admitted it most freely. If this great inroad were to be made in Protection, the principle must be extended to all-manufacturers, agriculturalists and colonists. If, then, it were unfair to protect sugar and not corn, it must be clear that if there be any industry to which the Government did not now afford protection, that the protection which it extended to agriculture must be unjust to the class pursuing the unprotected branch of industry. He supposed they would not deny that. (Cheers.) Well, he was then in some sense the representative of one of the largest trades carried on in this country, a trade to which no gentleman on the opposite side had ever proposed to extend the protection of legislative enactments. Since he had entered the House a proposition had been made to remove restrictions on the export of machinery-much of it used in the trade referred to. Every honourable member connected with that trade had voted for it. (Cheers.) Last year it was proposed to sweep away the protective duty of ten per cent. upon cotton yarn. Every honourable member connected with the trade voted for the proposition. (Cheers.) And there was now not a person in any way interested in the business who did not regret that the right hon. baronet had not swept away every vestige of Protection. (Cheers.) But he would not talk of the cotton and woollen trades; he would come to that great branch of industry of which hon. members opposite talked so much and appeared to know so little. (Laughter, and Oh, oh!) He had passed by the door of the Central Office of the Protection Society the other day, and certainly the place did look what was generally called "seedy" (laughter), and very forlorn. There was not the least appearance of business, but he observed a handsome brass plate on the door, marked, Central Society for the Protection of Agriculture and Native Industry.' (Laughter.) Now, what was this native industry they were so anxious to protect? Did they recollect that in 1842 his honourable friend the member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden) proposed that before they proceeded to make a law to raise the price of bread, it was becoming to ascertain whether it was possible to make a law to raise the rate of wages? What, on that occasion, was your answer? That spinners and weavers did not understand political economy-that it had long ago been settled that wages could not be raised by Act of Parliament. They had said so, and within an hour of the declaration they proceeded to make a law for the express purpose of raising the price of wheat which they had to sell-the produce of their own estates. (Cheers, and cries of Oh, oh!) They would propose prohibition if they dared and thought it safe. (Cheers, and cries of No, no.) They did not mind the starving of an operative in Lancashire or a labourer in Wiltshire. To a certain point they seemed determined to carry prohibition. (Oh, oh!) The population was increasing the competition for food increasing. and therefore they hoped, as they said, that there would be an increase of profits to their farmers—a hope which the public was ill-natured enough to translate into a hearty aspiration for an increase of rents to themselves. But, now, where was the protection to the labourer? He had heard a clergyman of the Church of England say that the protection of the labourer was the Poor Law. But it was as much the protection of the landlord. If the latter became poor, he would betake himself to the union. (Oh, oh!) But what protection had the labourer akin to the protection which the Corn Laws gave the landowner? This House within the memory of many of those who