another. It was a bad thing that an honest change of opinion should involve the penalty of surrendering the graves of ancestors, the old places of family worship, and all the religious haunts which are at least as dear to Nonconformists, whose fathers have suffered for their faith, as the most solemn cathedral and the most venerable ivied church in the country can be to those who worship there. It is bad that, as in the Hewley case, years of litigation should consume funds and irritate tempers, and leave a painful doubt at last whether justice can ever be done; whether, if the holders cannot be said to have a right to the property, it can ever be certainly decided, by any judges on earth, that it ought to be given to anybody else. To obviate such mischiefs as these, the government brought a bill before parliament which should confirm to all religious bodies the possession of the property which they had held for the preceding twenty years. The lord chancellor brought in this bill; and though it was opposed by a few bishops and lay lords, it passed the Upper House by a considerable majority. During the debate, however, an agitation had been begun which soon extended to almost every town in England, convoked public meetings where violent resolutions were carried, and loaded the table of the House of Commons with as many petitions as had gone up against Sir James Graham's educational clauses. The reason of the violence was, that the bill was supposed to be devised for the benefit of the Unitarians. The supposition was a mistake; but it was natural enough in persons who were not well informed in regard to some preceding legislation.

It was not only that Lady Hewley's case had furnished the warning and suggestion on which the ministerial bill proceeded. The first clause had a special bearing on Unitarian property. In 1813, the exceptions in the Act of Toleration-exceptions which affected the Unitarians exclusively were repealed; and from that time, the Unitarians were as firmly assured in the possession of religious trust-property as any other sect. But, by an omission, the act had not been made retrospective; and therefore, though the property of Unitarians instituted since 1813 was safe, they were at the mercy of litigation

for all that had been in their hands from an earlier date. The first clause of the present bill went merely to repair this omission; but the Dissenting sects which contemplated claiming Unitarian property, as in the Hewley case, made an outcry that government was intercepting property which should soon become theirs, and settling it in preference upon the Unitarians. The matter was clearly explained by the attorney-general, when he introduced the bill in the Commons on the 6th of June. He showed how, in the case of the Roman Catholics, similar assurance had been made retrospective, as a matter of course; and declared that the present bill was prepared on the recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and had been supported by all the legal authorities in the House of Lords. The prime-minister's speech was as frank and manly on behalf of justice as the action of his government on the occasion. He had not based his proceeding, he said, on the legal doctrines or historical truths brought forward so abundantly in the debate. His feeling was that, if any legal doctrine existed by which chapels held by any class of Dissenters could be taken from them, and given away elsewhere, the first thing to be done was to amend such a legal rule.

While the clamour was loud throughout the 'religious world,' as the petitioners called themselves, outside the walls of parliament, there was a remarkable preponderance of argument, ability, and political character within the House in favour of the government bill; a preponderance so remarkable as to be observed upon as unexampled by both Sir R. Peel and Lord J. Russell. The votes went with the argument, the majority for the third reading being 120 in a House of 282. Some slight amendments having been made in committee, the bill was returned to the Lords, when the Bishop of London made another effort to renew the dispute, on the ground that the House of Commons did not represent the religious opinion of the nation. He did not perceive the danger of his own blindness to the fact, that this was not a question of religious opinion, but of security of property-which no one could deny to be the proper business of the House of Commons. Though his endeavour to throw out the bill was zealously

supported by a few peers who shared the misconceptions prevalent out of doors, it was negatived by a majority of 161 in a House of 243; and the bill presently became law. From this time, places of worship which were not by the terms of the trust destined unmistakably for a particular sect, were to remain the property of the body which had held them for twenty preceding years; a settlement as conducive to social peace as consonant to justice. What the consequences would have been if the bill had been surrendered to popular clamour, and a mass of Dissenting property had been, in effect, thrown to the religious multitude to be scrambled for, in virtue of omissions and shortcomings of the law, some of the speakers ventured to hint, but none professed to describe.

Another act of the period, promotive of justice and of social peace, was the relief of Jews from municipal disabilities. This relief was the direct act of the government. The lord chancellor brought in a bill, early in the session of 1845, for removing certain tests by which Jews were excluded from some municipal offices, while others remained open to them. Five Jewish gentlemen were at that time magistrates-some for several counties; some were deputy-lieutenants, and all might be high-sheriff. If they refused to serve the office of sheriff in London, they were subject to a fine; yet they were excluded from the office of alderman-which is considered the compensation or reward for having discharged the onerous duties of the shrievalty-by a clause in the declaration which could be subscribed to only by a Christian; this clause itself dating only from 1828. In some towns the disability was evaded by management and subterfuge; but this did not mend the case. It is scarcely credible how much could be found to be said against a relief so reasonable and necessary as the one proposed; but the measure was carried with ease, being, as a fanatical member of the Commons House observed, in a state of panic, completely of a piece with several other measures which had passed the House during the last two sessions.' The last two sessions had indeed proved that the existing administration was inferior to none that had preceded it in its enlightened regard for religious liberty.

CHAPTER X.

Canada Corn Question-Confusion of Parties-Passage of the BillCorn-law Debates-Richard Cobden-The League-London Election -Anecdotes-League Registration-Freehold Land Scheme-The Game Laws.

THE prospect was opening year by year to the British nation of a sufficient supply of food; or, at least, of a supply not artificially restricted. The harvest of 1842 was abundant. The newspapers, during September of that year, tell of immense quantities' of corn gathered in, and of a proportionate production on the continent; and in October, there was a special thanksgiving in all places of worship throughout the kingdom. But there was an event of even happier promise than the abundant harvest. A letter from Lord Stanley to the governorgeneral of Canada, dated in March of this year, shows that the earnest petitions of the Canadians for the free admission of their corn into Great Britain were favourably regarded by the government. The colonial secretary granted assent to all the pleas in favour of free-trade between Canada and the mother-country; but pointed out that unless Canada chose to impose a duty on the importation of wheat and flour from the United States, Great Britain would in fact be supplied from the United States, via Canada, and the British corn-laws would become a mere sham. The Channel Islands had been all along permitted to send their agricultural produce free to England, with permission to buy for themselves wherever they could buy cheapest; but they owed this privilege to their small area of production, and the landed interest would not permit the extension of the liberty to so important a colony as Canada. Such were the explanations with which Lord Stanley accompanied his news that government was about to lower the duty on Canadian wheat, and to permit the importation of Canadian flour into Ireland.

The broad hint given in this letter was immediately taken. The Canadians saw that the government at home did not choose to impose new duties on United States produce imported into Canada; but that, if the colony herself chose to do so, she might consider the British government pledged to admit her wheat and flour free, or under a merely nominal duty; and a law was passed by the Canadian legislature, without delay, by which American wheat was charged, from the 5th of July 1843, with a duty of 38. per quarter.

So far, all was easy. But the affair was no sooner known in England than the landed interest' became extremely restless and anxious. At market-tables, at agricultural meetings, and wherever landlords and farmers met, it was hinted or proclaimed that ministers were about to let in foreign corn by a back-door, and to sink the cornlaws into an empty name. County members were instructed to be on the watch, and to put no blind trust in the ministry, till it was seen how this matter would end. The dissatisfaction was so strong as to make the ministers regret, as the colonial secretary avowed, that they had no choice of time about introducing their plan to parliament. As their promise to Canada bound them to propose their resolutions as early as possible, Lord Stanley could only deprecate the agitation, and explain away as much as he could of the alarm. No wheat from the United States was to be admitted-only flour made from it; which was as truly a Canadian manufacture as ostrich feathers were a French manufacture. The Canadians might live on United States wheat, and send us all theirs; but so they might, at any time for fifteen years-the only difference being that the duty was imposed now on the American frontier, instead of on our own shores. If we retained a duty of 18. on Canadian wheat, and the Canadians paid a 3s. duty on United States wheat, English wheat was still protected by a 4s. duty, which government believed would be an effectual protection. The change was proposed purely for the benefit of the Canadians, now settling down into a state of peaceful industry; and by no means for any advantage to the British consumer, as against the agriculturist at home. Though this was said very earnestly