The leading sentiment that guided the
proceedings of the whole body of Peelites alike was a desire to give to
protection its final quietus. While the younger members of the Peel
cabinet held that this could only be done in one way, namely, by
forcing the protectionists into office where they must put their
professions to the proof, Peel himself, and Graham with him, took a
directly opposite view, and adopted as the leading principle of their
action the vital necessity of keeping the protectionists out. This broad
difference led to no diminution of personal intercourse or political
attachment.

Certainly this was not due, says Mr. Gladstone, to any desire (at
least in Sir R. Peel's mind) for, or contemplation of, coalition
with the liberal party. It sprang entirely from a belief on his
part that the chiefs of the protectionists would on their accession
to power endeavour to establish a policy in accordance with the
designation of their party, and would in so doing probably convulse
the country. As long as Lord George Bentinck lived, with his iron
will and strong convictions, this was a contingency that could not
be overlooked. But he died in 1848, and with his death it became a
visionary dream. Yet I remember well Sir Robert Peel saying to me,
when I was endeavouring to stir him up on some great fault (as I
thought it), in the colonial policy of the ministers, 'I foresee a
tremendous struggle in this country for the restoration of
protection.' He would sometimes even threaten us with the
possibility of being 'sent for' if a crisis should occur, which was
a thing far enough from our limited conceptions. We were flatly at
issue with him on this opinion. We even considered that as long as
the protectionists had no responsibilities but those of opposition,
and as there were two hundred and fifty seats in parliament to be
won by chanting the woes of the land and promising redress, there
would be protectionists in plenty to fill the left hand benches on
those terms.

RELATIONS WITH PEEL

The question what it was that finally converted the country to free
trade is not easy to answer. Not the arguments of Cobden, for in the
summer of 1845 even his buoyant spirit perceived that some precipitating
event, and not reasoning, would decide. His appeals had become, as
Disraeli wrote, both to nation a