they would not pledge themselves to adhere to all the details of that scale.  And they said well and wisely, for there were grave objections to some of those details.  These objections they have removed, and infinitely added to the efficiency of the sliding-scale; but in removing the principal objections, they stirred a hornet’s nest—­they rendered furious a host of sleek gamblers in grain, who found their “occupation gone” suddenly!  On the other hand, the Government conferred a great substantial benefit upon the country, by securing a just balance between protection to the British corn consumer and producer; removing, at the same time, from the latter, a long-existing source of jealousy and prejudice.  A few words will suffice to explain the general scope of those alterations.  Under they system established by statute 9 Geo. IV. c. 60, in the year 1828, the duty on foreign corn, up to the price of 68s. per quarter, was so high, and declined so very slowly, (L.1, 5s. 8d., L.1. 4s. 8d., L.1, 3s. 8d., L.1, 2s. 8d., L.1, 1s. 8d., L.1, 0s. 8d., 18s. 8d.,) as to amount to a virtual prohibition against importation.  But when the price mounted from 68s. to 72s. per quarter, the duty declined with such great rapidity. (16s 8d., 13s. 8d., 10s. 8d., 6s. 8d., 2s. 8d.,) as to occasion the alarming and frequently recurring evils of glut and panic.  Now the following was the mode in which these serious defects in the law of 1828 were taken advantage of by the aforesaid desperate and greedy “rogues in grain,” who are utterly prostrated by the new system; they entered into a combination, for the purpose of raising the apparent average price of corn, and forcing it up to the point at which they could import vast quantities of foreign corn at little or no duty.  Thus the price of corn was rising in England—­the people were starving—­and turned with execration against those into whose pockets the high prices were supposed to go, viz., the poor farmers; whereas those high prices really were all the while flowing silently but rapidly into the pockets of the aforesaid “rogues in grain”—­the gamblers of the Corn Exchange!—­Ministers effected their salutary alterations, by statute 5 and 6 Vict. c. 14, in the following manner:—­They substituted for the former duties of 10s. 8d. per quarter, when the price of corn was 70s. per quarter, and 1s. when the price was 73s.; a duty of 4s. when the price of corn is 70s. per quarter, and made the duty fall gradually, shilling by shilling, with the rise of price, to 3s., 2s., and 1s.  Thus are at one blow destroyed all the inducements formerly existing for corn-dealers to “hold” their foreign corn, in the hopes of forcing up the price of corn to starvation-point, viz., the low duty, every inducement being now given them to sell, and none to speculate.  Another important provision for preventing fraudulent combinations to raise the price of corn, was that of greatly extending the averages, and placing them under regulations of salutary stringency.