ABSTRACT
‘Gentlemen, when we in 1846, resolved to lay down our arms, and to commit suicide as an Anti-Corn League, it was said, even by our enemies, that the fairest and best part of all our conduct was the close of our existence. Everybody admitted that the Anti-Corn-Law League had kept faith with the world at large – that we did not seek to divert the influence and power which we had obtained by the successful advocacy of our one question, to be the means of aggrandising any individual, or any bodies of men, in any other direction. I can say for myself, and I am sure too, I can say for all those around me, that so far as concerns any influence we acquired, by having been mainly instrumental in placing a new government in power, we have never sought at the hands of any government any recompense or reward, official or otherwise; we have never sought to obtain influence over any administration, nor in any way to use the power which we obtained through your confidence and kindness, to promote any personal objects. (Cheers.) I say this now, because in appearing before you and proposing to take part, if you think proper, in renewed efforts for maintaining the ground we have already won on this question, I intend to pursue entirely the same course as in former times. I have no other object in view, and no wish to serve any party of politicians. If we renew our effort, it shall be under the same rules and regulations which led us triumphantly to victory on the last occasion. We will strictly confine ourselves to the object for which we have met together. I solemnly declare for myself, that in the most exaggerated flights of fancy, I never expected so great a result from the labours of the League, as has been witnessed during the last four years. (Cheers.) Take for instance a single fact, which comprises almost our main case. Since the day when we laid down our arms, there has been imported into this country in grain, and flour of all kinds, an amount of human subsistence equal to upwards of fifty millions of quarters of grain – a larger quantity than had been imported from foreign countries during the 31 years preceding 1846, that is, from the peace of 1815 down to the time at which we brought our labours to a close. Now, gentlemen, in that one fact is comprised our case. You have had at the lowest computation, five millions of your countrymen, or countrywomen, or children, subsisting on the corn that has been brought from foreign countries. And what does that say? What does it say of the comfort you have brought to the homes of those families? What does it say of the peace and prosperity, and serenity of domestic life in those houses, where fifty millions of quarters of grain extra have been introduced, and where, but for your exertions, the inmates might have been left either in hopeless penury, or subsisting on potatoes? But I need not go 36into statistics to show what the beneficial consequences have been, you may see for yourselves your triumph in the nation’s eyes, you may read it in the countenances of the people of all classes, you may trace it in their improved clothing, and in their improved habits – you may see it in the diminished pauperism and crime throughout the whole country. You may see it in every aspect in which you can test, as touching the pulse of society, the condition of the great mass of the people. Well, gentlemen, if we have done so much, what have we averted? How much of pain and anguish lies behind the privations which the mass of the people must have suffered, if it had not been for your triumph? How much of vice and crime, and consequent misery, must have pervaded the great mass of the people, if they had been kept in the state of destitution and privation, which they must have been, but for the introduction of this great amount of human subsistence? These, then, are our reasons, and they are surely a sufficient justification for renewing the effort to maintain the ground which we have achieved, assuming that we confine ourselves to the one question we have in hand, as we did before. It cannot be concealed that there are many gentlemen who say – ‘Why don’t you go for a large measure of parliamentary reform, which will not only enable you to carry Free-Trade in corn, but to do a great many other things also?’ Now, the fallacy that underlies this argument, or entreaty, is this. It is assumed that because we are going to make an effort to put an end for ever to this controversy of Free-Trade, that therefore we intend to exclude other people from entering on the consideration of other questions. We do not say, that because gentlemen join in this new movement of the Anti-Corn Law League, they are to abandon those other principles, and neglect those other movements in which they are now or may be hereafter engaged; but having shown you the vast social benefits that have arisen from the emancipation of the people in the article of food, and from the establishment of Free-Trade in this commodity, we say that while we feel morally certain that in a few months we can put this question for ever out of the category of controversial questions, we do not feel justified in placing ourselves at a disadvantage, by taking up other questions, on which the public are not so well informed, or so well united. We, the men who have had a responsible position, and who have taken an active part in this agitation before, do not think it justifiable that we should change our position in the House of Commons from a majority to a minority, or retard the definite settlement of this question, from three or four months, to as many years. (Cheers.)
