HISTORY
OF
THE ANTI CORN LAW LEAGUE.
CHAPTER I
1832.—ASSERTION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES.
There was no great town in the United Kingdom, throwing a powerful influence upon the agitation in favour of the Reform Bill which more than Manchester, kept steadily in view the practical measure that might be expected as the result of an amendment of representative system. In other places there was a laudable impatience of the absurdity, apparent to all who possessed a portion of common sense, of permitting a mound of earth to send two members to Parliament, while great manufacturing or commercial towns, each the centre and market of important districts, sent none; but nowhere more than in Manchester—perhaps nowhere so much—was the attention placed upon the end while endeavouring to obtain the means. From 1815, to the period when some considerable parliamentary reform was seen to be inevitable, its necessity was mainly argued from the impolicy and injustice of the corn laws; and the strong conviction of the impoverishing effects of the landowners' monopoly gave concentration to the energy which was put forth to obtain such a representation as would guarantee the adoption of free trade. Free Trade, then, in the first
