SIR ROBERT PEEL'S SPEECH ON THE CORN LAWS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 228, 18 July 1846, Page 77

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S SPEECH ON THE CORN LAWS.

[From the Times, February 18.]

Sir Robert Peel's speech is only too successful. It is a perfect triumph of argument, but the victor is the great captive of the day. The procession, the spoils, the trophies, and the banners, are beyond measure splendid ; but when we look for the hero, we perceive him bound to his own chariot wheels. He has crushed all objections, but they were his own ; he has demolished a party, but he was once its leader ; he has revealed a great crisis, but that crisis is the catastrophe of his own life's drama ; with one mighty effort he has brought the fabric of protection and a crowd of antagonists down to the ground, but, like the captive of Gaza, he is himself buried under the downfall. Every quality of greatness in the speech recoils on the speaker. He proves the dire certainty of a famine, and the impossibility of doing more than just alleviate its horrors ; but a famine was always a possible, not to say a probable event, and why was it not provided for? He demonstrates that protection is a blighting thing, and that competition gives new life. Why has he been so long making that discovery ? He establishes the truth that abundance is a blessing. How could he ever deny it ? His whole life is the foil of this one act. He has tried protection these thirty years or more, and his only conclusion is the preacher's — that it is all vanity and vexation of spirit. Happily he is spared to undo what he has done. He lights up a glorious beacon at last, but what a length of past aberrations the light betrays !

It would be too much to say that the speech included the whole subject, and met every possible view of the case. Sir Robert Peel all over, it was remarkable for its close adaptation to Sir Robert Peel's own crisis, and exclusive reference to Sir Robert Peel's own experience. It was the "history of Sir Robert Peel and his times." The attentive reader — and it deserves an attentive reading — may easily remember by the contrast the very few occasions on which the Premier wanders out of that record. His short account of the Corn Laws during the last century, and of the occasions on which they were suspended, reads quite antiquarian amidst the ostentatious modernism of the argument. His concluding words, "we shall then be able to think that the dispensations of Providence have not been aggravated by human institutions, preventing to the people the supply of food," seem not less singular than impressive in the mouth of the speaker. Very seldom is it that Sir Robert appeals to a maxim which he has not verified and cannot call his own. Trust in Providence is, after all, an a priori sentiment, aud is interpreted by some agricultural divines to mean, trusting none but God and ourselves. But we should imagine that, whatever people may think of the sentiment, friend and foe will alike feel a little svirpriso at coming upon it in this speech; so rigorously is it confined to the recollections of Sir Robert Peel's own life, the records ol Parliament, the returns of the Customs, the correspondence of Home Office and Dublin Castle, the contents of the Premier's red box, and the debates of the session.

Sir Robert industriously and exactly meets the exigencies of his position. The failure of the Irish potato crop has been doubted. He proves it again, and adduces fresh, more certain, and far more serious corroborations, up to that very morning's post. He exhausts the ways in which it might have been met. The fir6t step was to procure as great and as early a supply of food as possible, and at as low a price. This implied a suspension of the Corn Laws. He preferred this step. Its adoption would have involved a revision of the law ; but so also did its rejection, and on those who rejected that alternative he throws the responsibility of the ministerial crisis. So far, the resignation and interregnum were not his doing, but events put in his way. The nexr questionable point was, the assistance offered to the Crown, and the support promised to a Free-trade successor. Sir Robert has been

taunted with being likely to give less than he is certain to receive in the interchange of political generosities. He closes this question by producing his letter to the Queen, of December 8 ; and shows that it was no act of his that caused Lord John Russell's failure, inasmuch as it was subsequent to all Sir Robert's communication with him that the noble lord set to work constructing his Cabinet.

From the inclemency of the seasons and the destructions of Cabinets, Sir Robert passes to his supporters, and has the humility to confess that he has apologies to make. The party is taken in mass and in detail. To the whole Conservative body Sir Robert Peel pleads that it would have been treachery to them, as well as to hi 3 Sovereign and the nation at large, to proceed in the course of •' consistency " to certain confusion and disgrace. It would have been a poor sort of faithfulness to involve the nation in famine and revolt, and make the Conservatives responsible for both. The individual Conservatives are not treated with so much affection. However anxious the Premier may be for the safety and credit of his party so long as they hold their tongues, they forfeit all claim to his paternal solicitude as soon as they speak for themselves. Certainly, could he have had the nomination of his opponents, and the dictation of their topics, he could hardly have had less damaging opposition. They are disposed of with matchless dexterity, and terrible effect ; and Sir Robert never so triumphed over the difficulties of his own position as when he convicted his refractory supporters of playing fast and loose, of riding at single anchor, of want of harmony between their speeches and their votes, their votes and their pamphlets, their premises and their conclusions, the beginning and the end of their career. But felicitous as was his treatment of these culprits, we think it even surpassed by the forensic tact with which he adduced the undeniably disinterested testimony of the supporters who have resigned their seats that they may not seem to forfeit their pledges. He has lost their votes, but takes care to husband their influence and authority. These were the knotty points of the speech. Once clear of them, it was all plain sailing and very triumphant. The trade winds filled the Premier's sail, and onward he sped with that impetus which one so often desiderates in the debate. Cases of protection removed, demand and consequently employment increased, predictions falsified, and deputations confounded, followed in rapid succession. How far the chariot and the arms were his own we will not say, but never did Grecian hero so gaily scour the plains. Meanwhile his foes were not neglected. Scarcely stopping or declining from his course, one moment he transfixed Miles, who fell very heavy, and with o considerable clash of armour; another moment he disabled O'Brien, and ended with the casual overthrow of " that great authority," the present Lord Ashburton. Sometimes, indeed, a fastidious taste might l>e offended at the minuteness or oddity of the details which Sir Robert swelled into so grand a cumulative whole. The delightful consummation of all the Cornish miners being enabled to sleep in feather beds will only be tolerated by those who are familiar with the grotesque presence of Vulcan in the courts of Olympus, But such incongruities ate characteristic of the heroic tone, which acquires breadth by the variety of the particulars embraced. In the glad congratulations, the graver warnings, and solemn appeals, with which Sir Robert concluded his speech, we can only declare our own warm concurrence, founded in our deep conviction that this is a good and righteous, and therefore" a victorious, cause.