"Sympathising with you in the still augmenting distress of our poorer brethren, and fortified by the facts with which your testimony has supplied us, we shall continue to advocate, and with renewed energy, the abolition of these impious laws, which, by limiting the food of the people, and restricting the demand for labour, have been the main source of the manifold ills now afflicting the community.
"Whilst giving expression to our grateful sense of the inestimable value of your present labours, permit us to beseech your continued efforts in furtherance of the righteous and philanthropic work in which,as Christians, you have engaged.
"We would earnestly entreat you, in your respective spheres of sefulness, individually to use the influence of your sacred calling, in awakening the public mind to the national importance of this great question.
"We rely on the moral weight of your example; we trust much to the efficacy of your pulpit exhortations; we feel that to your supplications at the throne of the Most High, the poor and wretched may yet look with humble hope, and to the Christian confidence that justice, so long denied, will at last be rendered them; and resting with firm reliance on your patriotic efforts, we look forward, with well-grounded assurance, to the early and triumphant issue of a struggle, on which depends the happiness or misery of millions of our fellow creatures, and the irretrievable ruin of our beloved country.
Mr. Cobden, in concluding the reading of the address, was greeted with loud cheering. The chairman briefly addressed the deputation. He trusted that it had been satisfactorily demonstrated, from the representations made during the sittings of the conference, that a repeal of the Corn Laws would be beneficial, not only to the manufacturers but the labourers, the agriculturists, and ultimately to the landowners themselves. They had assembled to serve no political party, but simply to further the cause of suffering humanity. A motion, that the address be received, and entered upon the minutes of the conference, was then made and agreed to. After an eloquent and impassioned address from Mr. George Thompson, which was frequently interrupted by the enthusiastic cheers of the meeting, a vote of thanks was passed to the chairman, to the ministers of Manchester for convening the conference,
