g an abundant
supply of corn and meat from abroad, whenever our own supply is
deficient; but up to that point protecting our home producers, whose
direct interest it will henceforth be to supply us at fair and
moderate prices. It is the cunning policy of the heterogeneous
opponents of the existing corn-laws, to speak of them as "doomed" by a
sort of universal tacit consent; to familiarise the public with the
notion that the recent remodeling of the system is to be regarded as
constituting it into nothing more than a sort of transition-measure--a
stepping-stone towards a great fundamental change, by the adoption of
"a fixed duty," some say--"a total repeal," say the Anti-corn-law
League. But those who think thus, must be shallow and short-sighted
indeed, and have paid very little real attention to the subject, if
they have failed to perceive in the existing system itself all the
marks of completeness, solidity, and permanence; and, in the
successful pains that have been taken to bring it to a higher degree
of perfection than before, a determination to uphold it--a conviction
that it will long continue the law of the land, and approved of as
such by the vast majority of those who represent the wealth and
intellect of the kingdom, and have the deepest stake in its
well-being.

As for a total repeal of the corn-laws, no thinking man believes that
there is the remotest prospect of such a thing; but many imagine that
a fixed duty would be a great change for the better, and a safe sort
of compromise between the two extreme parties. Can any thing be more
fallacious? We hesitate not to express our opinion, that the idea of
maintaining a fixed duty on corn is an utter absurdity, and that Lord
John Russell and his friends know it to be so, and are guilty of
political dishonesty in making such a proposal. They affect to be
friends of the agricultural interest, and satisfied of the necessity
for protection to that body; and yet they acknowledge that their
"_fixity_" of duty is of precisely the same nature as the "finality"
of the Reform bill, viz.--to last only till the first pressure shall
call for an order in council. Does any one in his senses believe that
any Minister could abide by a fixed duty with corn at the price of
70s., with a starving, and therefore an agitating and rebellious
population? A fixed duty, under all times and circumstances, is a
glaring impossibility; and, besides, is it not certain that the period
for the