BOTH HOUSES CARRY RESOLUTIONS PLEDGING THEM TO THE FREE-TRADE POLICY.
On the 23rd of November, the Hon. Mr. Villiers proposed a series of resolutions affirming the prosperity of the country, and the comfort of the poorer classes, as resulting from the policy of free-trade, and more especially in corn, pledging the house to support the measure of 1846, by which all duties on corn were repealed. The chancellor of the exchequer moved an amendment with the intention of defeating these resolutions. The government, however, assumed the tone of converts to free-trade on the ground that the country had pronounced for it. Mr. Frederick Peel, with bitter and eloquent irony, in the best speech he probably ever delivered in parliament, reminded Mr. Disraeli of his taunts and abuse of Sir Robert Peel for changing his opinions on the subject of a corn-law, and invited the right honourable satirist to account for his own change, if it were effected by any other motive than to retain office. He went to the country advocating the re-imposition of a corn-tax, and on his return presented himself to the house a convert to the opinion that it would be wrong to disturb the settlement of 1846. After a protracted debate, Lord Palmerston proposed an amendment which more generally embodied the public opinion, and was more adapted to party exigencies. All opposition to it on the part of the government was so hopeless, that most of their supporters left the house. Eighty remained, and voted against his lordship; four hundred and eight members supported it. The House of Commons was pledged to the free-trade policy.
A similar debate took place in the lords with nearly identical results. Various measures were discussed without leading to any parliamentary decision or useful law. It was evident that on all subjects of free-trade and financial philosophy the government and the majority of the house were at issue—the one desiring to restore protection under various sly and indirect pretences, the other anxious to develop free-trade principles, and a system of national finance in harmony with the principles of political economy.