[89] During the debate in the House of Lords on the Address, in January, 1846, Lord Brougham stated his views about the repeal of the Corn Laws; the reasons why they should be repealed, and the effects of that repeal. These views must have seemed to many at the time strange enough, if not eccentric, but they have turned out to be singularly correct. He said:--"It was my opinion that an alteration in the commercial policy of this country with respect to corn, as well as to other commodities, was highly expedient; I will not say solely, but principally, and beyond all comparison most chiefly wanted, not for the purpose of lowering the price of corn and food (which I never expected it could do, which I urged it could not do, which I endeavoured to show it had no tendency to do, any more than the Corn Laws had a tendency to keep up the prices of food); but because I thought it would tend to remodel the whole of our commercial system, and cause it to assume such a shape and position with respect to Foreign Powers, as to prevent them from excluding our manufactures, by opening our ports to their corn, and such as would give us a reasonable prospect that their restrictions would be removed, and our manufactures allowed to penetrate into these foreign markets." And further on in the same speech, "I shortly restate," he said, "the ground on which I rested for the repeal or the modification of the Corn Law system. I did not, because I could not, hold to the people of this country--I could not honestly hold out to them, that it would make bread cheap.... I did not argue that the Corn Law was the cause of famine, that it was the cause of disease, that it was the cause of crime, that it was the cause of mortality, in this country."--_(Hansard)_. [90] Smith O'Brien occupied far more of the time and attention of the House of Commons, during the Session, by his refusal to serve on a railway Committee than by his speeches. This refusal gave rise to some delicate questions of constitutional law, and consigned the hon. gentleman to prison for twenty-five days. _See note_ B, APPENDIX. [91] Lord George Bentinck: a political biography, 5th edition, revised, p. 158. [92] Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography, by Benjamin D'Israeli. [93] Sir Robert Peel's Memoirs, part 3, page 310. Any one can see how little poor famine-stricken Ireland was before Sir Robert's mind, when he penned the above lines. [94] The Irish Crisis, by Sir Charles E. Trevelyan. [95] This observation was, in all probability, levelled at the _Dublin Evening Mail_; a newspaper which Sir Lucius would be sure to read, being one of the organs of his party, and which had, sometime before, with a heartless attempt at humour, called the blight "the potato mirage." [96] The _Freeman's Journal_.