420 History of the English Landed Interest. 



It must not be supposed that any Minister at this period was 

 favourable to the entire abolition of the Corn Laws. Peel, 

 notwithstanding what men suspected, certainly never dreamed 

 of so drastic a measure. Russell only held out for a fixed duty 

 in lieu of the sliding scale, and would have shrunk from the 

 responsibility of absolute repeal, while the Duke of Buccleugh 

 and Lord Stanley would have instantly severed (as later on 

 they did sever) their connection with the Government had 

 such a policy been broached. Nor could Ministers have 

 counted on a majority in the House, and it is doubtful if by 

 an appeal to the country they could have insured their return 

 to power on such an issue. 



But the crisis was precipitated by the direful news that now 

 arrived from Ireland. The potato crop had failed, conacre 

 labour, like a pricked air-bladder, had suddenly collapsed, and 

 famine was imminent. Everybody was horrified, and men of 

 all parties and shades of opinions met together in order to 

 propose measures of relief. The Radicals of to-day scornfully 

 recall to memory that the head of the English Peerage sug- 

 gested curry powder as a fitting substitute for the Irishman's 

 potato diet ; another nobleman proposed that the Government 

 should organise a supply of salt fish ; the Royal Agricultural 

 Society recommended the peasants to repeatedly boil up bones 

 for soup.^ In reality, however, everybody opened widely his 

 purse-strings, subscriptions poured in, and the great landed 

 capitalists as usual headed the lists. 



Peel, almost immediately, recognised that the emergency, 

 aggravated as it was by a disastrous harvest in England, 

 required some far more effective measure than that which 

 private philanthropy afforded, and endeavoured in vain to in- 

 duce his colleagues to at once suspend all restrictions on the 

 importation of food. The letter of Lord John Russell from 

 Edinburgh to the London electorate, announcing the complete 

 abandonment by the Whigs of all Corn Law principles, justified 

 Peel's attitude. Four Cabinet Councils took place in one week. 

 Some of the Ministry resigned, and Peel was obliged to tell 



^ BigM Hon. W. E. Gladstone ; The Queen^s Prime Ministers. G. W. 

 E. Eussell, 



