4o6 History of the English Landed Interest. 



outside of Parliament, and only to be satisfied b}" the sur- 

 render of the political supremacy. Already, in a House 

 principally composed of patrons of agriculture, the Commercial 

 Interest was holding its own. Corn Law riots outside Parlia- 

 ment, combined with growing opposition to the Government 

 inside, assured the Whig and Torj^ squires that they were on 

 their trial. In 1816 ministers had been badly defeated in 

 their proposal to continue the property tax, and the Landed 

 Interest got a snub in the person of Mr. Western when it 

 attempted to increase the stringency of the Corn Laws. 



All now depended upon the action of the Whig party. 

 Would the pressure from outside intimidate them into a 

 compromise with the Extremists, or drive them in their alarm 

 to seek shelter amidst the Torj^ ranks? Would they bring 

 themselves to believe, like Burdett, that the industrial com- 

 munity was being sacrificed for the landowning class, or 

 would they regard the agitation as a dangerous revolt against 

 the authority of the ancient aristocracy of the soil? Was 

 anarch}^ or increased national prosperity lurking behind this 

 agitation for cheap food and the reconstruction of the fran- 

 chise? For a considerable time, therefore, they became an 

 intermediate party between the Radicals and Tories, sharing 

 the unmerited fate of all politicians thus obliged to adopt " a 

 middle way of steering," and becoming alternately despised 

 and courted by both extremes. Yet without the Whigs, 

 Parliament would never have retained as long as it did, the 

 confidence and support of all the moderate men of the country. 

 Speaking of the expected alteration in the Corn Laws, the 

 Quarterly Review for 1826 refused to join the literary crusade 

 then raging, stating its reason to be " because we are content 

 to leave their arrangement [i.e. the Corn Laws) in the hands 

 of the Government, whose jDosition of neutrality between what 

 are called (as we think erroneously) the conflicting interests of 

 agriculturists and manufacturers, enables them to suggest a 

 change with unimpeached impartiality." 



In the academical phase of the contest advocates of the pro- 

 tective system alleged that used in moderation it created no 

 monopoly, and could not unwholesomely stimulate production 



