[81] This was the speech in which he said that Gladstone founded “a great measure on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle.”
[82] The rise in wages and prices about 1851 was mainly due not to “Free Trade,” but to the influx of newly discovered gold. In 1842, when Peel was revising the tariff, bread was actually cheaper than it had been for many years previously, or till 1849 afterwards. In 1851 corn had sunk to about 40s., nearly 8s. lower than Peel had contemplated as possible. The immediate results of repeal were not the cheapening of bread; but the sudden cheapening of commodities was effected by Peel’s revision of the tariff. In 1851, however, all other agricultural produce but wheat was at fair prices, and Disraeli then wrote, “It is possible that agriculture may flourish without a high price of wheat or without producing any” (Correspondence, p. 262).
[83] “... A large system of commercial intercourse on the principle of reciprocal advantage.”
[84] The land was promised compensation, but received none worth the name. It was deluded by vague promises of actual benefit under the new system. Peel even asserted that corn would never fall under forty-eight shillings per quarter.
It is often forgotten that in 1843 Peel favoured a preferential tariff for Canada, and that both he and Gladstone were then for Canadian “retaliation” on America.
[85] It is only the old evil of over-production and “glut in the market.” While England was still the main manufacturer and exporter, she herself periodically “dumped,” and suffered from the process.
[86] A satirical passage in his very early Popanilla may be compared.
[87] These he had long before predicted, and his forecast that they would cause some of the prosperity of manufacture, apart from “Free Trade,” has come true.
[88] “History of Israel,” vol. iv. p. 286.
[89] That the Church was “a main obstacle to oligarchical power,” Disraeli pointed out as early as in his Runnymede Letters.