Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/353

 1846.] Sir Robert Peel's Administration. 339 of leaving the agriculturists without protection ; and Russell, whilst advocating a fixed duty, maintained that the tax ought to be levied not for revenue, but for protection. Now, in the debate on the address on the first night of the session, Russell said, " I am convinced that protection is not the support, but the bane of agriculture." The actual campaign was again opened by Cobden, who once more moved for a select committee to consider the effect of the corn laws on agriculture. He was strongly supported by Lord Howick, who was amongst the first of the official Whigs to accept the complete free-trade policy. On this occasion he startled the House and shocked the squires, after he had argued that monopoly made prices rise and wages fall, by quoting from the Bible the awful denunciation, " Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth." He expressed his deliberate conviction that, in consequence of the corn laws, the hire of the labourers who had reaped our fields had been kept back by fraud, and thought that as a nation we ought to take that solemn warning to ourselves. This strong language irritated, but did not convince the protectionists ; they wanted no inquiry, and rejected the motion by 213 to 121. The protectionists were not content to stand merely on the defensive. On the i/th of March Mr. Miles moved " That it is the opinion of this House that, in the application of surplus revenue towards relieving the burdens of the country by reduction or remission of taxation, due regard should be had to the necessity of affording relief to the agricultural interest." The motion was opposed by Sir James Graham, but it was used as an opportunity of protest by the ultra-protectionists against their desertion by the Ministry. Of this feeling Disraeli was making himself the mouthpiece, and his speech on this occasion contained some sentences which have become memorable. " Protection," he said, "appears to be in about the same condition that Pro-