laws had brought prices much lower than statesmen
had expected; and that he was prepared to advocate in
parliament a return to a moderate duty. Greater
quietness at length prevailed, and the Protectionists
were allowed to go through the form of passing their
resolutions.

Another Violent Meeting was that of the West Kent
Protectionists at Penenden Heath, on the 24th. A
Protectionist resolution was moved by Lord Stanhope, and
a free-trade one by Mr. Beacon. After much noise the
resolutions were put to the meeting. The show of hands
appeared equal, but was declared favourable to the
Protectionists; and great uproar then arising, the Sheriff
soon after dissolved the meeting, almost before a resolution
in compliment to himself had been moved. The
crowd pelted the mounted farmers with mud, and
dispersed with cheers for free trade.

Other large meetings, however, have been unanimous
in their Support of Protection. This was the case with
the meeting of the Leicestershire and Rutlandshire
farmers at Waltham, and the meeting of Protectionists
at Northampton. At the first the Marquis of Granby
and Lord John Manners were speakers; and the Earl of
Wilton, Viscount Newport, M.P., Lord C. Manners,
M.P.; Mr. Frewen, M.P., were present: at the second,
the Earl of Southampton, the Duke of Grafton, Sir
Henry Dryden, Sir Charles Knightley, M.P., Earl
Pomfret, Mr. Maunsel, M.P., Mr. Stafford, M.P., and
Captain Vyse, M.P.

There have been a number of Protectionist Meetings,
also, in Ireland. The "Great National Meeting" of
Protectionists was held on the 17th at the Rotunda in
Dublin. The chair was to have been taken at eleven
o'clock; but owing to the thinness of the attendance, it
was fully an hour later. The Marquis of Downshire
then took his seat, and even at that time the round room
was not one quarter full. There was, however, a fair
sprinkling of the nobility and gentry present. The Earl
of Roden was greeted with immense cheers, accompanied
by "Kentish fires." The movers and seconders of
the resolutions were the Earl of Glengall, Mr. MacCarthy,
Mr. Butt, Q.C., the Marquis of Westmeath, the
Earl of Shannon, the Hon. Mr. Preston, Mr. James
Martin, Lord Clements, Col. Dunn, M.P., Earl of Mayo,
Mr. J. Ennis, the Marquis of Drogheda, Colonel
Chatterton, M.P., the Earl of Bandon, Mr. T. M. Redmond,
the Hon. Colonel Verner, and others.—In the County
of Down, Mr. Sharman Crawford moved an amendment
on the Protectionist resolution, and carried it. Lord
Downshire and the Protectionists retired from the meeting,
but the High Sheriff would not dissolve it; and at
the end of the proceedings Mr. Sharman Crawford was
voted into the chair, in order to thank the High Sheriff
for his impartial and manly conduct.—In Limerick,
Cork, Cavan, Meath, and Wexford, amendments on
Protectionist resolutions have been carried by large
majorities.

Lord Wharncliffe has declined to join the
Protectionist Movement. The requisition for a meeting at
York to consider the best means of obtaining the enactment
of a fixed duty on grain, having been submitted
for his signature, he sent an answer, which has been
published, stating that he can in no degree concur in
that proposal. He gives it as his firm opinion that there
is nothing in the present prospects of agriculture to
justify such an application to parliament; and he sees
circumstances in the commercial history of the past few
years which, with the present ill-defined and exaggerated
alarm, account for the temporary extreme depression of
agricultural prices. He treats, moreover, the idea of
the restoration of the corn-laws as a mere delusion,
the propagation of which is pernicious to the true
interests of industry.—Lord Yarborough, who was a zealous
Protectionist before the repeal of the corn-law, has
also declined to join in carrying on the contest. He
has refused to sign a requisition for a Protectionist
county meeting, advising that the experiment of free-
trade should have a further trial under ordinary seasons
and circumstances, and thinking that the attempt to
re-impose protective duties would end in failure, after
convulsing the country and sowing the seeds of mutual
animosity among the industrious classes.

A Great Meeting, in connexion with The Financial
and Parliamentary Reform Movement was held in the
County Hall, at Aylesbury, on the 9th, to receive Mr.
Cobden, who, in his late speech at Leeds, had challenged
the Protectionists to meet him in the Buckinghamshire
stronghold, to discuss the question of Protection and
Free Trade. Mr. Cobden, having been introduced to
the meeting, by whom he was received with loud cheers,
addressed them in a powerful and comprehensive speech.
He began by maintaining that, by every test that can
proclaim the prosperity or adversity of a nation, we stand
better now without the corn-laws than we did when we
had them. What were the tests of a nation's prosperity?
A declining or improving revenue was one test. Our
revenue was better now than it was under the corn-laws.
Our exports and imports were better than they were
under the corn-laws. Then on the question of pauperism,
and he would not shrink from that test even in an
agricultural district, he had the statistics of many unions
in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire; and he warned
the Protectionists that in the case of pauperism, even
the Aylesbury districts stood more favourably now with
bread at a moderate price, than they did in 1847, when
prices were high, and the loaf was nearly double its
present rate. Then take the condition of wages, which
is a test of the state of the mass of the people. What
were the people earning now, compared with what they
earned in 1847, when the Protectionists were so well
satisfied with the high prices? As a rule, throughout
the country more money was being earned now in every
branch of business than was earned in 1847, and the
working-people were getting the comforts and
necessaries of life, in many cases, at two-thirds (and in some
cases at less) of the prices of 1847. It had been said that
if we had free trade in corn, the gold would all be
drained out of the country, because we could not bring
in five million quarters of grain without draining away
our gold, as the foreigner would not take anything but
our gold in exchange for his corn. Now, between thirty
and forty millions of foreign corn had been brought into
this country within four years, and the Bank of England
was never so encumbered with gold as it is now. He
repeated, that in every branch of business the rate of
wages was improved. He made no exception of any of
the trades in that district, not even trades employing
women, and instanced the condition of the straw-plaiters
and the pillow-lace makers, who were both of them
getting more employment. Mr. Cobden proceeded to
illustrate his views as to the relation between landlord
and tenant, by reference to his management of his own
small estate in Sussex. He was interrupted by cries of
"How did you get it?"—"I am indebted for it," he
answered, "I am proud to say, to the bounty of my
countrymen. It was the scene of my birth and my
infancy; it was the property of my ancestors; and it is
by the munificence of my countrymen that this small
estate, which had been alienated by my father from
necessity, has again come into my hands, and enabled
me to light up afresh the hearth of my father, where I
spent my childhood. And I say there is no warrior duke,
who owns a vast domain by the vote of the Imperial
Parliament, who holds his property by a more honourable
title than I possess mine." When the vehement
cheers produced by these words had subsided, Mr.
Cobden described the course he adopted when he visited
the property after it came into his possession. This was
in 1848, when prices ranged high in this country; but
he, never expecting that those prices would continue,
thought it the proper time for every man having an
interest in the land to prepare for the coming competition
by the foreigner. He gave orders that every hedgerow
tree on that estate should be cut down and
removed, and authorised them to remove every fence on
the estate. That portion which required draining, he
had immediately drained at his own cost. His land,
lying in the very midst of that of the largest
Protectionist landholders, and who as a matter of course were
great game-preservers, had been infested particularly
with hares and rabbits; and he authorised the tenants
on the land to kill all the hares and rabbits, and
empower any one else to kill them also. At that time,
continued Mr. Cobden, prices ranged high, and they
had ranged high during the greater part of the year,
and nothing was settled about rent. But in the course