The Parliamentary Session of 1845 opened with an attempt,
on the part of Lord John Russell, the leader of the Opposition, to
compel the Government to declare its policy on free trade. Sir Robert
Peel was silent, probably because, at the moment, he had no fixed policy
about it; or, if he had, he was not the man to declare it at an
inconvenient time. Great agricultural distress prevailed, a fact
admitted by both sides of the House: the Protectionist members
maintained that it was caused by the concessions already made to free
trade, the free traders, on the contrary, held it to be the result of
the continuance of absurd protective duties. Meantime, Mr. Cobden came
forward with a proposal, which, unless agreed to must necessarily put
the Protectionists in the wrong. He asked for a Committee of Inquiry
into the causes of this distress, before which he undertook to prove
that it was caused by the Corn Laws. For some time it had been whispered
abroad that Sir Robert Peel was fast inclining to freetrade, and only
looked to the country for sufficient support to justify him in declaring
his views openly: the leading members of the League were not slow to
make use of those rumours: and, in his strikingly able speech, calling
for the Committee, Mr.
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