must do, and therefore I accepted his invi- | be a torture and a violence to his reason to tation, and from that time we never ceased have to make a stand against them. Nay to labour hard in behalf of the resolution more, each of these gifted men had proved which we had made.' that he could go bravely into the midst of angry opponents, could show them their fallacies one by one, destroy their favourite theories before their very faces, and triumphantly argue them down.'

'For seven years,' adds Mr. Bright, the discussion on that one question-whether it was good for a man to have half a loaf or a whole loaf-for seven years the discussion was maintained, I will not say with doubt- The change of Ministry had no effect ful result, for the result was never doubtful upon the operations of the League-it and never could be in such a cause; but neither diminished their efforts, nor daunted for four years or more we devoted ourselves their confidence in the ultimate success of without stint; every working hour almost their cause. They thought, indeed they was given up to the discussion and to the had reason to believe, that the new Premier movement in connection with this question.' was at heart a Free Trader. In 1839 he Mr. Bright might well say that he and had told the House of Commons, with his friend Cobden devoted themselves with- marked emphasis, 'I have no hesitation in out stint to the great cause which they had saying, that unless the existence of the Corn adopted. We were not even the first,' he Law can be shown to be consistent not only remarked, though afterwards we became with the prosperity of agriculture and the the foremost before the public.' Though maintenance of the landlords' interest, but they had numerous and able coadjutors, the also with the protection and the maintesuccess of the agitation for commercial nance of the general interests of the country, freedom was largely, under divine Provi- and especially with the improvement of the dence, due to their labours. They were condition of the working classes, the Corn truly instant in season and out of season Law is practically at an end.' Firmly per--reproving, rebuking, exhorting.' United suaded as Cobden and Bright were that as these two noble-minded men were by this law was in the highest degree injurious mutual esteem and confidence and the to the interests of all classes of the comstrongest affection, their mental qualities munity, they not unnaturally concluded were admirably fitted to make them fellow-that a statesman of Peel's intellectual helpers in the cause to which they had acumen could not resist the evidence they devoted themselves. The alliance between had adduced to prove that this was the them far more than doubled the power that case. My own conviction,' said Cobden, either could have exerted without the other.' some years later, is that Peel was always 'These two orators,' said Mr. Kinglake a Free Trader in theory; in fact, on all (whose general political opinions are far politico-economical questions he was always from being in sympathy with theirs), 'had as sound in the abstract as Adam Smith or shown with what a strength, with what a Bentham. For he was peculiarly a politicomasterly skill, with what patience, with economical and not a Protectionist intellect. what a high courage they could carry a But he never believed that absolute free scientific truth through the storms of trade came within the category of practical politics. They had shown that they could House of Commons' measures. It was a arouse and govern the assenting thousands question of numbers with him; and as he who listened to them with delight-that was yoked with a majority of inferior they could bend the House of Commons- animals, he was obliged to go their pace that they could press their creed upon a and not his own.' This statement is scarcely Prime Minister, and put upon his mind so quite correct as regards the state of Sir hard a stress that after a while he felt it to Robert Peel's mind at the time he assumed

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office in 1841. He indeed frankly admitted | A penny worth of mutton was a common that the general principles of free trade purchase. were sound, and that it was a mere delusion to suppose that Parliament by any duty, in whatever way imposed, could guarantee a certain price to the grower of corn. He expressed his belief that on the general principle of free trade there is now no great difference of opinion, and that all agree in the general rule that we should buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market; but he contended that the Corn Laws and the Sugar Duties were exceptions to the general rule. His cousin, Sir Laurence Peel, in a sketch of the life and character of the great statesman, says, 'Sir Robert Peel had been alway a Free Trader. The questions to which he had declined to apply these principles had been viewed by him as exceptional.' It is obvious, however, that circumstances might arise which would compel the Prime Minister to apply the principles of free trade to these exceptional cases.

The members of the League believed that these circumstances had already arisen, and that the distress which existed among the manufacturing classes, amounting almost to famine, demanded the immediate abolition of the restrictions on the people's food. Their faith in the conclusiveness of their arguments was so strong, that they did not doubt that their effect upon others would be equally convincing. There were nearly 21,000 persons in Leeds whose average earnings were only about a shilling a week. In Bradford the woollen goods made in a year had decreased five-sixths, and of nineteen mills in operation in 1820 only two remained in 1840. In Paisley nearly onefourth of the population was in a state bordering upon actual starvation. Bolton, Colonel Thompson said, was in the condition of a besieged town-the inhabitants were compelled to consider on how small an amount of food life could be sustained. A specimen case was that of a woman purchasing a halfpenny worth of bread to be the dinner for herself and her two children.

The Leaguers took care that these and other similar facts should be proclaimed over the whole country. Lecturers were sent out to every district, especially to the strongholds of the Corn-Law landlords, to make known to the agricultural labourers the real cause of their sufferings, and to show the farmers that protective duties on corn were as injurious to them as to the community. The placards, hand-bills, and brief statements of facts were circulated in tens of thousands among the middle and lower classes. Public meetings were held in all the large towns and many rural districts, from Aberdeenshire to Cornwall, which were addressed by Cobden, Bright, Colonel Thompson, and other leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law League; and in spite of the opposition of local magnates, and sometimes the stones and brickbats of hired ruffians, these meetings universally terminated with carrying almost unanimously resolutions in favour of the total abolition of the Corn Laws, and of all restrictions on trade and commerce. Conferences of ministers-mostly Nonconformists-were held at Caernarvon, at Manchester, and in Edinburgh, at which interesting information was given respecting the privations of the people, and the woeful deterioration of their condition within the last ten, and more especially within the last three years; and resolutions were passed against the unjust and injurious laws which had so grievously aggravated the sufferings of the working classes, and the general depression of trade. At the moment when millions of the people were in this deplorable condition the duty on the importation of wheat was twenty-four shillings and eightpence, on oats thirteen shillings and ninepence, on barley ten shillings and tenpence, and on rye fourteen shillings a quarter. The Anti-Corn-Law agitators,

whom the landlords denounced as sowers of sedition, were in reality the most efficient instruments in preserving the public peace, for there is every reason to believe that