The Works of Benjamin Disraeli - 1904 Author:Benjamin Disraeli Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER LXV. A Struggle Between Factions. ) UT, as Mr. Tadpole observed, with much originality, at the Carlton, they were dancing on a volcano. It was Dec... more »ember, and the harvest was not yet all got in, the spring corn had never grown, and the wheat was rusty; there was, he well knew, another deficiency in the revenue to be counted by millions; wise men shook their heads and said the trade was leaving the country, and it was rumoured that the whole population of Paisley lived on the rates. ' Lord Roehampton thinks that something must be done about the Corn Laws,' murmured Berengaria one day to Endymion, rather crestfallen; 'but they will try sugar and timber first. I think it all nonsense, but nonsense is sometimes necessary.' This was the first warning of that famous budget of 1841 which led to such vast consequences, and which, directly or indirectly, gave such a new form and colour to English politics. Sidney Wilton and his friends were at length all-powerful in the cabinet, because, in reality, there was nobody to oppose them. The vessel was waterlogged. The premier shruggedhis shoulders; and Lord Roehampton said, 'We may as well try it, because the alternative is, we shall have to resign.' Affairs went on badly for the ministry during the early part of the session. They were more than once in a minority, and on Irish questions, which then deeply interested the country; but they had resolved that their fate should be decided by their financial measures, and Mr. Sidney Wilton and his friends were still sanguine as to the result. On the last day of April the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the budget, and proposed to provide for the deficiency by reducing the protective duties on sugar and timber. A few days after, the leader of the House of Commons himself ...« less