May buds more regularly in its meetings than in its
foliage and flowers. Exeter Hall is fertile as usual. The Protestant Asso- ciation duly meets to declare its horror at the goings-on of Minis- ters, Legislature, and public in general—the lapsed " Fidei De- fensor " of the florin was a tidbit this year !—and the British and Foreign School Society has met to listen to Lord Carlisle's aspira- tions for unsectarian tuition.
But the Protectionist meetings are the distinctive feature of May 1850. Mr. Ferrand is labouring away at his Wool League in Yorkshire, and obtaining " resolutions " with unchecked success ; insomuch that long cloth had need to be blanched with fear of its own extinction, and British backs must prepare for woollen shirts.
In town, the Duke of Richmond has collected a host of "dele- gates," to consult and be energetic. The latter is not an easy task. The object is to get up an agitation ; but as the leaders cannot agree among themselves upon the basis of a new policy, each fol- lowing his own idea of a campaign, there is no material on which to base an agitation, except a sort of pseudo-rebellion. The language of the farmers was very blustering, the mode of campaign which they suggest very singular : it is the labourers who are to rise and riot, and the farmers are to rebel only in the shape of not putting down the labourers ! Such is the hint thrown out for the future, in language that might vie with that of the Daniel O'Con- nell of? former days for mutinous twang. But the immediate plan of operations is not so very terrible: they are to "protest," to "cast on Ministers the responsibility of free trade," &e. • and to go in a deputation with avowals as to " the critical and alarming state of the country." That is all. There is no proposal to take office, no aim even at some preliminary possession of power ; except a vague talk of money to be subscribed for the elections. But the demonstration has a further purpose, not explicitly avowed. Besides the attempt to juggle the public, farmers and landlords are engaged in an attempt to juggle each other. Land- lords naturally wish to keep up rents; and they do their best to keep up hopes among tenants of a return to protection. Farmers naturally wish to lower rents, and they are not averse from making landlords feel the pinch of the necessity. The " demon- stration against free trade" is as much as anything a disguised squabble about rent carried on upon the platform.
