The agriculturists have had a grand Metropolitan demonstra- tion, in
the first annual dinner of the Central Agricultural Pro- tection Society, at Freemason's Tavern. Dukes, other Lords, and Members, were there • the meeting was numerous, the dinner luxurious, and the cheering loud. But some circumstances rather detract from the imposing nature of the display—some even of the very circumstances vaunted to swell it. The Anti- Corn-law League periodically fill a theatre : in rivalry, we are told that the promoters of the Protective meeting would have taken a theatre if they could have got one ; but that potential magnificence contrasts rather awkwardly with the positive form of the indicative mood hf which the League revel. Tenwit- farmers were brought to grace the triumph of the great land- owners : but the tenants seized the moment when the landlords, were on their good .behaviour towards the public, for lecturipg them on their duties'to tenants; and the landlords were perforce obliged, not only to endure the lecturing, but to profess to like it, and to applaud the didactics of their inferiors. Then, some of the speeches betrayed divided councils—doubts whether the agricul- turists should struggle to recover additional "protection," which the more ardent desire, or whether they should only strive to hold what they have, which the more discreet advise in a manner that implies scarcely a hope of doing so much. Finally, the great Protectionists, who ruled the roast in the tavern, contrast very awkwardly even with themselves in Parliament ; where the Duke of Richmond becomes a short-speeched complainer that the agriculturists are forgotten, and Mr. Miles, as if stung to agony, cries out at the shadow of Lord Jolm Russell's contem- plated cruelties.
