general principles of free-trade to corn, endeavoured
to embarrass and compromise the Cabinet, by com-
pelling it to explain its intentions. Sir Robert Peel
made no answer. Two days afterwards, Mr. Cobden
expressed his surprise that the Queen, in her Speech,
should have made no allusion to the sufferings which
afflicted the agricultural population in several coun-
ties: and he announced his intention to ask for a
Committee of Inquiry into the causes of the prevail-
ing agricultural distress. In the short discussion
which arose on this subject, some of the defenders of
the protective system attributed this distress to the
recent diminution of protection. Sir Robert Peel
limited his observations to rebutting this charge. 'I
do not think,' he said, 'that the change in our law has
been the cause of the agricultural distress, and I feel
bound to say, that I cannot look to Parliament for any
further legislative interference. I think the restora-
tion of the former amount of protection impossible;
and even were it possible, I should not sanction the
re-establishment of increased protection as a relief to
the distress at present existing, which I deplore, but
which I attribute to natural causes.'

This immobility, the sole consolation which Peel
offered to the partizans of protection, could not satisfy
the friends of commercial liberty. Mr. Cobden brought
forward his motion for an inquiry into the causes of
agricultural distress. After having clearly established
the fact that this distress existed, by the statements of
the Conservatives themselves, both in and out of the
House, as well as by the admission of the, Govern-
ment, he went on to maintain that the protective sys-

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