ABSTRACT
Faced by the fact that the League was attempting to eliminate the Landed Interest as a political force by severing the bonds which held its parts together, provincial Protectionists began to think of resistance. The circumstances in which Protectionists found themselves were so entirely novel that they knew not how to resist the enemy. The transformation of an unorganised Landed Interest into an organised Protectionist party was a feat equalled only by the establishment of the League. Agricultural Societies were not founded as a medium for political action. The mutiny which occurred in the ranks of the Conservative party in 1842, the year of Peel’s political zenith, was regarded by Disraeli as a portent.
