So far, then, from evincing a disposition to trifle with, or surrender, the principle of the sliding-scale, the Government have, with infinite pains and skill, applied themselves to effect such improvements in it as will secure its permanency, and a better appreciation of its value by the country at large, with every additional year’s experience of its admirable qualities.  There is a perfect identity of principle, both working to the same good end, between the existing corn-law and the new tariff.  Their combined effect is to oppose every barrier that human wisdom and foresight can devise, against dearth and famine in England:  securing an abundant supply of corn and meat from abroad, whenever our own supply is deficient; but up to that point protecting our home producers, whose direct interest it will henceforth be to supply us at fair and moderate prices.  It is the cunning policy of the heterogeneous opponents of the existing corn-laws, to speak of them as “doomed” by a sort of universal tacit consent; to familiarise the public with the notion that the recent remodeling of the system is to be regarded as constituting it into nothing more than a sort of transition-measure—­a stepping-stone towards a great fundamental change, by the adoption of “a fixed duty,” some say—­“a total repeal,” say the Anti-corn-law League.  But those who think thus, must be shallow and short-sighted indeed, and have paid very little real attention to the subject, if they have failed to perceive in the existing system itself all the marks of completeness, solidity, and permanence; and, in the successful pains that have been taken to bring it to a higher degree of perfection than before, a determination to uphold it—­a conviction that it will long continue the law of the land, and approved of as such by the vast majority of those who represent the wealth and intellect of the kingdom, and have the deepest stake in its well-being.

As for a total repeal of the corn-laws, no thinking man believes that there is the remotest prospect of such a thing; but many imagine that a fixed duty would be a great change for the better, and a safe sort of compromise between the two extreme parties.  Can any thing be more fallacious?  We hesitate not to express our opinion, that the idea of maintaining a fixed duty on corn is an utter absurdity, and that Lord John Russell and his friends know it to be so, and are guilty of political dishonesty in making such a proposal.  They affect to be friends of the agricultural interest, and satisfied of the necessity for protection to that body; and yet they acknowledge that their “fixity” of duty is of precisely the same nature as the “finality” of the Reform bill, viz.—­to last only till the first pressure shall call for an order in council.  Does any one in his senses believe that any Minister could abide by a fixed duty with corn at the price of 70s., with a starving, and therefore an agitating and rebellious population?  A fixed