Reform seemed still distant, when Shelley's prophecy was fulfilled. Freedom's eternal foe, Famine, came suddenly to her help. Dearness of wheat and meat had obliged half of the Irish and many of the English to live entirely on potatoes. Wages were often paid in Ireland by loan of land for raising this crop. The rot which began in August, 1845, soon became so destructive that Peel, who was then Prime Minister, proposed in October that grain should be made free of duty. Wellington and other members of the Cabinet demurred; and the question had to be submitted to Parliament. Disraeli insisted to the last on keeping up the tariff; but famine was increasing; and both Houses finally agreed, after long debate, to accept Peel's proposal, that not only the duties on food and raw materials, but most of the others, should be either reduced or abolished. His conservatism did not keep him from seeing that the whole system of protecting home industries must stand or fall together. Prominent among obstructionists were the bishops. The House of Lords did not agree before June 25, 1846, to the reform which had been accepted on May 15th by the House of Commons, and which was publicly acknowledged by Wellington to be inevitable. Such was the exasperation of the protectionists that they helped the opponents, of coercion in Ireland to drive Peel out of office, by a vote which was taken in the House of Commons on the very day when his plan of tariff reform gained that victory in the House of Lords which made free trade for ever the system of Great Britain. About one-half of the import duties are now levied on tobacco, one-fourth more on wine and strong drink; and most of the rest on tea and other groceries. Duties on articles which could be produced in Great Britain are offset by internal-revenue taxes. No monopoly is given to farm or factory; no necessary article is made too dear for the poor; and there are no needless violations of the right of the labourer to spend his wages in the best market.