text:  The _form_ in which the question was proposed to the country it fell to the lot of the advocates of a fixed duty to prescribe and they shaped it thus in the Queen's speech:-- "It will be for you to determine whether the corn-laws do not aggravate the natural fluctuations of supply; whether they do not embarrass trade derange currency and by their operation diminish the comforts and increase the privations of the great body of the community