al
politician, and the protectionism which I inherited from him and
from all my youthful associations was qualified by a thorough
acceptance of the important preliminary measures of Mr. Huskisson,
of whom he was the first among the local supporters. Moreover, for
the first six years or so of my parliamentary life free trade was
in no way a party question, and it only became strictly such in
1841 at, and somewhat before, the general election, when the whig
government, _in extremis_, proposed a fixed duty upon corn. My mind
was in regard to it a sheet of white paper, but I accepted the
established conditions in _the lump_, and could hardly do
otherwise. In 1833 only, the question was debated in the House of
Commons, and the speech of the mover against the corn laws made me
uncomfortable. But the reply of Sir James Graham restored my peace
of mind. I followed the others with a languid interest. Yet I
remember being struck with the essential unsoundness of the
argument of Mr. Villiers. It was this. Under the present corn law
our trade, on which we depend, is doomed, for our manufacturers
cannot possibly contend with the manufacturers of the continent if
they have to pay wages regulated by the protection price of food,
while their rivals pay according to the natural or free trade
price. The answer was obvious. 'Thank you. We quite understand you.
Your object is to get down the wages of your workpeople.' It was
Cobden who really set the argument on its legs; and it is futile to
compare any other man with him as the father of our system of free
trade.

I had in 1840 to dabble in this question, and on the wrong side of
it[152].... The matter passed from my mind, full of churches and
church matters, in which I was now gradually acquiring knowledge.
In 1841 the necessities of the whig government led to a further
development of the great controversy; but I interfered only in the
colonial part of it in connection with the colonies and the slave
trade to Porto Rico and Brazil. We West Indians were now great
philanthropists! When Sir Robert Peel assumed the government he had
become deeply committed to protection, which in the last two or
three years had become the subject of a commanding controversy. I
suppose that at Newark I followed suit, but I have no r