ABSTRACT
Peel was subjected to repeated attacks on his policies and personality, during the debates on the Repeal of the Corn Laws. This speech, on the third night of the adjourned debate, illustrates the nature of the opposition to which he was exposed within the Conservative Party.
Arguing that it would have been impossible to suspend the Corn Laws during the present crisis only to re-introduce them subsequently, Peel maintained that it was necessary to settle a ‘subject otherwise calculated to promote excitement on the part of one class, and to cause great apprehension on the part of the other’. The scarcity in Ireland ‘left no alternative to us but to undertake the consideration of this question; and that consideration being necessary, I think that a permanent adjustment of the question is not only imperative, but the best policy for all concerned’.
Peel went on to defend himself from the charge of inconsistency and of betrayal of principle. He declared his ‘strong belief that the greatest object which we or any other Government can contemplate should be to elevate the social condition of that class of the people with whom we are brought into no direct relationship by the exercise of the elective franchise’.
This edition of the speech omitted the famous confrontation between Peel and Disraeli, in which the two men debated the precise manner in which Disraeli had solicited Peel’s favour when the Conservative government was formed in 1841.
The ministry won the motion by a majority of 98 votes (327–229).
