possible, with the view of promoting the object the delegates had in view. The delegates, increased in numbers, met again next morning, and passed a resolution, that, while they demanded a repeal of all restrictions on the importation of articles of subsistence, they were prepared to resign all claims to the protection of home manufacturers. They also resolved to meet from day to day during the discussions on the Corn Laws, and that Mr. Villiers should be invited to include in his motion that evidence be heard at the bar of the house. They then separated to attend the House of Commons at the to opening of the parliamentary session.
The Queen's speech made no allusion to the Corn Laws. Mr. E. Buller, the mover of the address in the Commons, admitted the impossibility of sustaining high prices by the existing laws. The seconder, Mr. George William Wood, President of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, in obedience to instructions received from his constituents at Kendal, stated the injurious effects to manufacturers and labourers produced by the exclusion of foreign corn; but, elated by the honour conferred upon him by ministers, he thought he could not well fulfil his mission without adverting to the usual topic of address movers—the prosperity of the country—and in doing so, struck at the then main argument for repeal. "There was something," said the London Examiner, "at once painful and ludicrous in the effect which this part of Mr. Wood's speech produced. The astonishment of the advocates of free trade in the house—the nervous anxiety of the delegates under the gallery—the whispered assurances of the sagacious that Wood was a deep fellow, and would wind it all round before he sat down'—the respectful attention of Sir Robert Peel—the startling applause of the country gentlemen—and the unconscious, earnest, and solemn complacency with which the orator himself continued, brick by brick, to demolish the foundations of the
