The Protectionists are at sea, and every meeting only serves
to expose the confusion among them. As they can unite upon nothing, they have hit upon the device of a thoroughly negative policy as the point of union. At Cirencester we see landlords lecturing farmers on the necessity and expediency of enterprise; at Leicester, farmers lecturing landlords on high rents. Mr. Kilby, a tenant-farmer, avers that the landlords can have lost nothing by Corn-law repeal, since rents have not yet fallen; but that as the prices of provisions have fallen, the landlord has really gained. In Bond Street, the Central Protection Association has been trimming, in the endeavour to unite the Disraeli and Young sections of Protectionists. On Wednesday the members compli- mented Mr. Disraeli, and implied a promise to take up his mea- sure for revising local taxation—some day. Yesterday, they re- solved to act in alliance with the Protection League, and, we presume—but the proceedings are not published—the move for a dissolution of Parliament ; which negative measure has been proposed as the Protectionist game for the ensuing session. They show a manifest anxiety not to alienate Mr. Disraeli,—a wise anxiety, for assuredly he is the brightest jewel in their crown.
