Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/300

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284
PROTECTIONIST ABUSE.
Christian women. What you do, do with your might ; do it in the name of perishing humanity; do it in the name of Him who, though he was rich, for your sakes became poor. And He shall reward you. He shall acknowledge what you do as done unto himself. And, when on the pillow of death you review the transactions of life, this act of mercy shall smooth your passage to the grave; and your noblest epitaph shall be—that you sought to deliver the poor that cried; while the eulogium that divine lip shall utter shall be this—"She hath done what she could!'

The ladies had not only been told that their work of benevolence was "unfeminine," but the unmanly attempt was made to cast foul slander on their characters and was persevered in on the part of one influential journal until the proprietor was told, in a manner which he could not misunderstand, that unless he gave orders to his underlings to desist, he would be made personally responsible for their calumnies. The virulent abuse then took another and safer direction. The Standard said that "England would be as great and powerful, and all useful Englishmen would be as rich as they are, though one ruin should engulph all the manufacturing towns and districts of Great Britain," and asked, "Is there a millowner who would not compound for the utter destruction of all the manufacturing industry of Great Britain at five years' end, upon condition that during that period he should have full and profitable employment for all his mills, his capital, reinforced by all the credit he could obtain? And it may be confidently answered NOT ONE." The play was to represent the question as one, not to give bread and work to millions of half-starved and half-employed workmen, but to give profit to a few rich capitalists—to divert the agitation directed against selfish monopolists into one against employers,—and it was successful to a certain extent, as we shall see in the history of the succeeding year. The Times adopted the language of the physical chartists, and conferred upon capitalists the nick names of "mill-molochs and "millocrats." The Herald