CHAPTER VII.

REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS.

The Potato Disease in Ireland.--The Government and the Crisis.-Lord John Russell's important Letter declaring for Free Trade-Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright appeal to the Prime Minister.-The Corn Laws doomed.— Great League Meeting at Covent Garden Theatre.-Cabinet Difficulties. Peel returns to Office.-Meeting of Parliament.-Measure for the Repeal of the Corn Laws introduced.-Sir Robert Peel's Statement.--Protracted Debates. Mr. Bright's eulogium upon the Premier.-The Corn Importation Bill passes both Houses.-Dissolution of the League. Interesting proceedings.-Final Speech by Mr. Bright.-Celebrations in the Country. Presentations to the League Leaders.-General Effects of Free Trade. In the middle of August, 1845, there began to appear the earliest indications of that mysterious potato disease which was to complete the work of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and to force from Parliament that measure of repeal which had long been clamoured for in vain. In Ireland the minute plague spread rapidly, till it blackened thousands of acres, and destroyed the food of millions of men. In a very short time. two-thirds of the tubers were found to be rotten within, though large and well-looking without. On the 13th of October Sir R. Peel wrote to Sir J. Graham that the accounts of the state of the potato crop in Ireland were becoming very alarming. Something would have to be done, and he had no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of exports or the stoppage of distilleries; the removal of the impediments to import was the only effectual remedy.

A meeting of the League was held in the Free Trade Hall on the 28th of October. The object of the meeting was to point out the remedy for the famine which threatened England, and to avert the misery, starvation, and death of millions in Ireland. Mr. Cobden said the natural and obvious remedy was to open the ports. the ports. Russia, Turkey, Germany, and Holland had done so, and why should not our Government follow their example? Mr. Bright said that everything around was telling them in a voice louder than ever that every word of reproach, every harsh saying which they had uttered against the Corn Law, had not by any means conveyed its true character as it was then exhibited. The Corn Law was now having its due

effect, and one which its framers anticipated-that of taking something from the produce of the millions of almost starving poor, and handing it to the rich. Looking at the matter in every light, he added, "How dreadful the abandonment of duty, how awful the crime, not less than that of those who made the Corn Law, if we step back from our place, if we fail in the work we have set ourselves, which is to abolish the law that restricts the bounty of Providence, and to establish the original and heaven-given law which will give plenty to all the earth.'

Cabinet Councils now became frequent, and in a memorandum, afterwards published, dated November 1st, the Premier asked, 'Can we vote money for the sustenance of any considerable portion of the people on account of actual or apprehended scarcity, and maintain in full operation the existing restrictions on the free import of grain? I am bound to say my impression is that we cannot. The Government were memorialized from all quarters instantly to open the ports. The Prime Minister was desirous of giving way, but there were dissensions in the Cabinet, his only supporters being the Earl of Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert. The Dublin Mansion House Relief Committee issued a series of resolutions, one of which was to the following effect: 'We feel it an imperative duty to discharge our consciences of all responsibility regarding the undoubtedly approaching calamitous famine and pestilence throughout Ireland, an approach which is imminent and almost immediate, and can be obviated only by the most prompt, universal, and efficacious measures of procuring food and employment for the people.' The Committee impeached the conduct of the Ministry in refusing to open the ports, or to call Parlia ment together earlier than usual.

At this juncture, Lord John Russell wrote from Edinburgh to his constituents, the electors of the City of London, admitting that it was no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty. Let us unite to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people.' His lordship called upon the Government for satisfactory measures. Morpeth, in forwarding a subscription to the League Fund, wrote to Mr. Edward Baines: 'I wish to record, in the most emphatic way I can, my conviction that the time has come for a final repeal of the Corn Laws, and my protest against the continued inaction of the State in the present emergency." When this letter was read at the Leeds meeting, the enthusi

Lord

asm which prevailed was indescribable. It also caused considerable excitement in London.

Mr. Cobden, speaking at one meeting in London, called on Sir Robert Peel to save the country from the impending famine. 'There is no man in the world,' he said, 'whether he be the Grand Turk, or whether he be a Russian despot, who has more power than Sir Robert Peel now has in this country. He has the power, and I say he is a criminal and a poltroon if he hesitates a whit.' Mr. Bright also said: 'Sir Robert knows well enough what is wanted, and were his Government ten times as strong as it is, it must yield before the imperious and irresistible necessity which is every day gaining upon it. From his recent speeches I should argue that he intends to repeal the Corn Law. He cannot say what he now says, and yet mean ever to go back to the old and foolish policy of protection. He sprang from commerce, and until he has proved it himself, I will never believe that there is any man-much less will I believe that he is the man-who would go down to the grave, having had the power to deliver that commerce, and yet not having had the manliness, honesty, and courage to do it.'

On the 4th of December, the Times made the startling announcement that Parliament would be summoned for the first week in January, and that the Royal Speech would recommend an immediate consideration of the Corn Laws, preparatory to their total repeal. This information was described as an 'atrocious fabrication' by the Standard, but its accuracy was speedily demonstrated. Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch having signified their inability, however, to support the Premier in his repeal policy, Sir Robert Peel temporarily resigned office on the 5th of December. At the same time, he intimated to the Queen that if she should entrust Lord John Russell with the formation of a Government, he would support measures founded on the general principle indicated in his lordship's letter to the electors of the City of London. On the 15th, Mr. Cobden, speaking at a meeting in the London Guildhall, said he had been over almost every part of the country, and the accounts he had received of the potato crop were so bad, that he believed in many districts before next spring there would not be any even for seed. 'What infatuation, then, must it be on the part of those dukes and squires who go maundering about like old women at public meetings-who rise in the morning and go out to shoot, and come home in the afternoon to their champagne and venison.' If there was no potato rot, he wanted to know what murrain it was which had

crept into the Cabinet. At another gathering in Covent Garden Theatre, on the 17th, he said that the League had only to work for six months longer, when it would be dissolved into its primitive elements by the triumph of its principles. On the same day, Sir Robert Peel wrote to the Queen that he could not fetter himself, before the Corn Laws were discussed in Parliament, by a distinct pledge to Lord John Russell that he would support their immediate and total repeal.

At this critical period, a great League meeting was held at Covent Garden Theatre, on the 19th, Mr. Bright being the principal speaker. His address on that occasion was very telling and vigorous. He began by stating that during the past month he had been present at meetings in Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Somersetshire, and Middlesex; and he had been forced to the conclusion that the agitation throughout the kingdom was of no trivial or common character. The question now arose, how was social order to be preserved? and he affirmed that the continuous government of the country by any Administration was totally incompatible with the maintenance of the Corn Laws. The speaker then eloquently said,—

This contest has now been waged for seven years; it was a serious one when commenced, but it is a far more serious one now. Since the time when we first came to London to ask the attention of Parliament to the question of the Corn Law, two millions of human beings have been added to the population of the United Kingdom. The table is here as before; the food is spread in about the same quantity as before; but two millions of fresh guests have arrived, and that circumstance makes the question a serious one, both for the Government and for us. These two millions are so many arguments for the Anti-Corn-Law League-so many emphatic condemnations of the policy of this iniquitous law. I see them now in my mind's eyes ranged before me, old men and young children, all looking to the Government for bread; some endeavouring to resist the stroke of famine, clamorous and turbulent, but still arguing with us; some dying mute and uncomplaining. Multitudes have died of hunger in the United Kingdom since we first asked the Government to repeal the Corn Law; and although the great and powerful may not regard those who suffer mutely and die in silence, yet the recording angel will note down their patient endurance, and the heavy guilt of those by whom they

have been sacrificed.'

Mr. Bright then went on to observe that there had been a succession of skirmishes, but they now approached the final conflict. The struggle was that of the many against the fewbetween the numbers, wealth, comforts, the all, in fact, of the middle and industrious classes, and the wealth, the union, and sordidness of a large section of the aristocracy of this empire; 'and we have to decide,-for it may be that this meeting itself may to no little extent be the arbiter in this great contest,—

we have to decide now, in this great struggle, whether in this land in which we live we will longer bear the wicked legislation to which we have been subjected, or whether we will make one effort to right the vessel, to keep her in her true course, and if possible to bring her safely to a secure haven.' The landlord rule in this country had been long, and its legislation corrupt and unequal. Under the sway of landlordism, great numbers of the people had been reduced to pauperism. He proceeded to demonstrate the evils of protection, and the miserable condition of the agricultural labourers. 'The crowning offence of the system of legislation under which we have been living is, that a law has been enacted in which it is altogether unavoidable that these industrious and deserving men should be brought down to so helpless and despairing a condition. By withdrawing the stimulus of competition, the law prevents the good cultivation of the land of our country, and therefore diminishes the supply of food which we might derive from it. It prevents, at the same time, the importation of foreign food from abroad, so that when we are forced to go there for them, they are not to be found.'

The most demoniacal ingenuity, he asserted, could not invent a scheme more calculated than this ingeniously malignant law to bring millions of the working classes into a state of pauperism, suffering, discontent, and insubordination. And that a fat and sleek dean, a dignitary of the Church and a great philosopher, recommended for the consumption of the people-he did not read a paper about the supplies that were to be had in the great valley of the Mississippi--Swede turnips and mangelwurzel; and the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, as if to out-herod Herod himself, recommended hot water and a pinch of curry powder.

Here was a law which said to twenty-seven millions of people, 'Scramble for what there is, and if the poorest and the weakest starve, foreign supplies shall not come in for fear some injury should be done to the mortgaged landowners.' But the promises of Lord John Russell, or any other Minister, to repeal this law were only conditional. They could not of themselves repeal the Corn Law. It could only be done by the unequivocal expression of the public will. Having promised such a demonstration throughout the country as should make the monopolists quail, Mr. Bright thus concluded:

'Two centuries ago the people of this country were engaged in a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic and treacherous monarch assumed to himself the right to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament and the