Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/221

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ADDRESS FROM THE LEAGUE.
205

for total repeal as the true policy of even those who might be more anxious to support ministers than to have completely free importation at once:—

"Ministers have announced their intention to seek to re-adjust the balance between a decreasing revenue and an increasing expenditure,tariff, as far as they can, to one constructed on the principle of taxing from revenue alone, not for protection. They have at the same time announced their intention of grappling with the by approximating our inevitable question of the bread tax. But they have kept the two questions separate. With the tariff they got to work at once. But with regard to the bread tax, they announce that a month hence they will invite the legislature to deliberate on what is to be done. They say to the country, as plain as words can speak, 'Tell us what you want, and what amount of support we can look for.'

"The true view to take of the ministerial step of Friday evening is, that they are feeling their way, to learn what they can, and what they ought to do. Therefore, do we say, that they are the true friends of their country, who, between this time and the first of June, will exert themselves most strenuously to show ministers and the House of Commons what is the real wish of the people on the great question of the bread tax. Honesty now, and always is, the best policy. There must be no reserve; every man must tell frankly what he wants—the whole of what he wants. The man who, thinking, or professing to think, that the law which imposed the bread tax ought at once to be swept from the statute book, is as false to the government as to the cause, if he persuades those who wish for total and immediate repeal to ask for less. He bids them deceive government; he bids them tell government that fewer are prepared to back them in a total repeal than really are; he bids them tell government that a measure will give satisfaction which he knows will not. Asking for all we want, cannot weaken our cause in Parliament."

On Thursday evening, May 6th, an important meeting was held in the Music Hall, Liverpool, convened by placard on one day's notice by the Anti-Corn-Law Association of that great commercial town, and a deputation from the Council of the League were present, consisting of Messrs. Thomas Bazley, John Brooks, Richard Cobden, and John Bright. The immense room was filled to overflowing, and hundreds of persons were unable to gain admittance. Sir Joshua Walmsley was called to the chair. Mr. Bazley,