Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/295

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THE FUNDS OF THE LEAGUE.
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lecturers having been especially manifested in the Agricultural districts. More than 2,000,000 of stamped and other publications have been distributed. In addition to these, there has been an average weekly publication of 20,000 copies of the League paper, 16,000 to the subscribers to the League fund, besides & sale of 5,000 copies weekly, amounting in sixty-seven weeks to 1,340,000 copies, making the total distribution of publications nearly 3½ millions. The correspondence, since the last report, has more than doubled, the number of letters received at the League offices in London and Manchester being about 25,600, while the numbers despatched from the two offices lave been about 300,000." The report concludes thus:—"The council have now entered upon the seventh year of their labours. Of the past they can speak with satisfaction. They have seen public opinion gradually, but surely, becoming more and more settled in favour of free trade; the public press, the organ of that opinion, uniting more earnestly and cordially with the exertions of the League; the cabinet chosen by the monopolists, moving slowly it may be, but still moving on in the direction of free trade; whilst, throughout the manufacturing districts, the return of active and prosperous commerce has not only done nothing to abate the enthusiasm and determination of their friends, but has given them enlarged means of advancing the object they have so greatly at heart. The League is emphatically the representation of the classes that live by industry; it is an embodiment of the spirit and energy of trade which is struggling to be free; it seeks no private, no partial good, but the true and permanent interests of the whole people; hitherto it has received a degree of support unknown to any other organization in this country; it has sought, by a faithful discharge of its duties, to deserve the confidence reposed in it; its success is to be seen wherever the opinion of the people is freely manifested, and its complete and not distant triumph is as