The opposition, more especially the freetraders, received this sentiment with rapturous applause, so the adroit statesman added: "I know the 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. Meantime, Mr. Cobden came forward with a proposal, which, unless agreed to must necessarily put the Protectionists in the wrong. He asked for a Committee of Inquiry into the causes of this distress, before which he undertook to prove that it was caused by the Corn Laws. For some time it had been whispered abroad that Sir Robert Peel was fast inclining to freetrade, and only looked to the country for sufficient support to justify him in declaring his views openly: the leading members of the League were not slow to make use of those rumours: and, in his strikingly able speech, calling for the Committee, Mr. Cobden more than hinted that the Premier, although not yet a free trader before the country, was one at least in heart. "There are politicians in the House," said he, "men who look with an ambition—probably a justifiable one—to the honors of office; there may be men who—with thirty years continuous service, having been pressed into a groove from which they can neither escape nor retreat—may be holding office, and high office: maintained there probably at the expense of their present convictions which do not harmonize very well with their early opinions. I make allowances for them; but the great body of honorable gentlemen opposite came up to this House, not as politicians, but as the farmer's friends, and protectors of the agricultural interests. Well! what do you propose to do? You have heard the Prime Minister declare that, if he could restore all the protection which you have had, that protection would not benefit the agriculturists. Is that your belief? If so, why not proclaim it; but if it is not your conviction, you will have falsified your mission in this House by following the right hon. baronet into the lobby, and opposing inquiry into the condition of the very men who sent you here. I have no hesitation in telling you, that if you give me a Committee of this House I will explode the delusion of agricultural protection. I will bring forward such a mass of evidence, and give you such a preponderance of talent and of authority, that when the Blue Book is published and sent forth to the world your system of protection shall not live in the public opinion for two years afterwards." And again he said with irresistible logic: "I ask you to go into this Committee with me. I will give you a majority of county members. I ask you only to go into a fair inquiry as to the causes of the distress of your own population. Whether you establish my principle or your own, good will come out of the inquiry; and I do therefore beg and entreat you not to refuse it."
The effect of this speech in the House and throughout the country was very great. The anti-Corn Law League printed it by the million and scattered it broad-cast over the land; it was even said that it had no inconsiderable effect on Sir Robert Peel himself, and many of his friends believed that Mr. Cobden exercised, on the occasion, "a real influence over him." The Premier refused the Committee, but remained silent; Sidney Herbert it was whom his chief entrusted with the arduous duty of replying to the great Leaguer. In the course of his speech he said, "it would be distasteful to the agriculturists to come whining to Parliament at every period of temporary distress; but in adverse circumstances they would meet them manfully, and put their shoulder to the wheel."[73]
On the 9th of August the Parliamentary Session of 1845 closed, leaving Sir Robert Peel still at the head of that imposing majority which had sustained him since 1841. Not long after commenced those gloomy reports of potato blight which continued to increase, until the fact was placed beyond the possibility of doubt.
It was not originally Sir Robert Peel's desire to propose a repeal of the Corn Laws in the session of 1846; he would have much preferred the postponement of the question for a year or so, in order to prepare the public mind for his altered opinions; besides, he not unreasonably hoped that the success of the changes of 1842 would have so enlightened his party as to induce them to accept further and greater changes in the commercial tariff. Meantime, he could be feeling his way with them by the aid of trusted friends, and be making them, in various ways, familiar with the new sacrifices he was about to require at their hands. Hence, the potato blight was, in more senses than one, an untoward event for himself and his Cabinet, since it hurried him into the doing of that, which he hoped to have done without giving any very violent shock to the opinions or prejudices of his Tory supporters.
Sir Robert, if not a man of great forecast or intuition, was certainly one to make the most of circumstances as they arose, provided he had time for reflection. When the news of the potato failure in Ireland became an alarming fact, he recast his plan, and put that failure foremost amongst his reasons for repealing the Corn Laws; in fact, in his own adroit way he left it to be understood, that this was the immediate and urgent cause for dealing with the question—nay more, that the real, the only question he was dealing with was the potato blight, and the threatened famine in Ireland; and that, in anxiously seeking for an adequate remedy for such terrible evils, he could find but one—the total repeal of the Corn Laws. Some in his own Cabinet, and numbers of thoughtful people throughout the country, saw a variety of plans for meeting the failure distinct from such repeal; very many even, so far from regarding it as a remedy against Irish famine, considered it would be a positive injury to this country, under existing circumstances; but Sir Robert Peel, with that charming frankness and simplicity, the assumption of which had become a second nature to him, could see but one remedy for poor Ireland—a repeal of the Corn Laws. Others, which were hinted to him by some of his colleagues, he dexterously avoids discussing, and only repeats his own great conviction—repeal the Corn Laws and save poor, famine-threatened Ireland.
From the end of August to the beginning of October several communications passed between the Premier and Sir James Graham, relative to the failure of the potato. During that period the accounts were very varied, partly from the disease not having made very much progress, and partly because there was not as yet sufficient time to examine the crop with care; but a perusal of the correspondence which reached the Government, so far as it is given in Sir Robert Peel's Memoirs, and his speeches in Parliament, prove that the accounts in newspapers, and above all in letters received and published by the Mansion House Committee, did not overstate the failure, but rather the reverse—this fact is more especially evident from the joint letter of Professors Lindley and Playfair already quoted.
Of all the ministers, Sir James Graham seems to have had the greatest share of the Premier's confidence; Sir Robert thus writes to him from Whitehall on the 13th of October:—"The accounts of the state of the potato crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming. I enclose letters which have very recently reached me. Lord Heytesbury says that the reports which reach the Irish Government are very unsatisfactory. I presume that if the worst should happen which is predicted, the pressure would not be immediate. There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports, that delay in acting upon them is always desirable; but I foresee the necessity that may be imposed upon us at an early period of considering whether there is not that well grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption of every means of relief which the exercise of the prerogative or legislation might afford. I have no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of exports or the stoppage of distilleries. The removal of the impediments to import is the only effectual remedy."
Sir James Graham wrote to the Premier from Netherby on the same day enclosing a communication from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which is not given in the Peel Memoirs, but which Sir James says, "conveys information of the most serious kind, which requires immediate attention." He goes on to give it as his opinion that the time had come when speculation was reduced to certainty, as the potatoes were being taken out of the ground; it was therefore the duty of the Government to apply their attention without delay to measures for the mitigation of this national calamity. He refers to Belgium and Holland, and says it is desirable to know, without loss of time, what has been done by our Continental neighbours in similar circumstances. Indian corn might, of course, he says, be obtained on cheap terms, "if the people would eat it," but unfortunately it is an acquired taste. He thinks the summoning of Parliament in November a better course than the opening of the ports by an Order in Council.[74] On receipt of the above Sir Robert again wrote to the Home Secretary: "My letter on the awful question of the potato crop will have crossed yours to me. Interference with the due course of the law respecting the supply of food is so momentous and so lasting in its consequences, that we must not act without the most accurate information. I fear the worst. I have written to the Duke also."