Page:Vindication of a fixed duty on corn.djvu/9



I am a Conservative, a well-wisher to the British Agriculturist, and I advocate a fixed duty upon Foreign Corn.

But what have a man's politics and partialities to do with the Corn-Laws? Nothing; and for that very reason I declare mine here. Unhappily, the advocacy of the rival systems has been committed chiefly to political partisanship and class influence; so that the appeal has been made to passion and prejudice, instead of to reason and patriotism; and it has been supported by misrepresentation and sophistry, instead of by truth and argument. On the one side, men eminent for their talents have not scrupled to enlist excitement as a fit ally; on the other, men eminent by their station have openly ventured to oppose with threats the change they dreaded.