conditions then prevailing in England, altogether at the
mercy of the weather and crops of a single year. The
harvest of 1845 betrayed Peel just as ten years later
"GeneralFévrier" turned traitor to the Emperor
Nicolas. The spectre of national scarcity began to
stalk through the land, and to haunt the minister as he
meditated in tragic isolation on the stern ironies and
inexorable retributions of public duty. In England
the summer was wet, and the harvest was scanty. In
Ireland a mysterious malady suddenly attacked the
potato, and destroyed the food of the people.

There is no arguing with an empty belly. Famine
is no respecter of parties, and a starving people cannot
wait for the calculations of statesmen to mature. Theor-
etically protection had long since been dead, and Peel
himself had more than once written its epitaph; practi-
cally it still stood between the people and that "abundant
and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer
leavened with a sense of injustice," which Peel, to his
everlasting honour, secured for his countrymen by the
sacrifice of his party and the surrender of himself. It
would be unnecessary, even if it were possible, to trace
in these pages the history of the anti-Corn-Law
League, its long conflict, and its triumphant victory.
There is no episode in modern English history more
familiar in all its details to every one who studies
politics, and none which, on the whole, has been
more fortunate in its historians. It must suffice to say
that though in every session from 1841 to 1845 Peel
had stoutly withstood the agitation of the League, and
had strenuously opposed the annual resolution pro-
posed by Mr. Villiers in favour of the total and immediate

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