Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/193

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177
MR. LYTTELTON.

supporter of protection? Mr. Acland said: "Do you ask me publicly before the electors?" Mr. Bolton said he did. Mr. Acland said he could only answer for himself; but there were two respectable members of the Council of the League who could answer for that body. He went on to state the avowed principles of the League, and to show the benefits it anticipated from free trade in corn, his remarks being received with marked applause from an audience which had been silent during the delivery of Mr. Lyttelton's school-boy address. "Do not," said he in conclusion,"take my exposition of the principles of the League. Mr. Prentice and Mr. Rawson can state them authoritatively, and Mr. Lyttelton will be able then to tell you whether he agrees with them." I felt that we had no right to address a meeting expressly called to hear Mr. Lyttelton, but the invitation, or rather challenge, had come from his own agent, with his assent, and I accepted it. I stated the original constitution of the League, which was to obtain total repeal, and referred to the resolution of the delegates in London, that they would not give their support to any candidate, whatever his politics might be, who was not in favour of repeal. I said that as a reformer myself, I should be glad if Mr. Lyttelton, a professed liberal, declared his opinion to be in accordance with that resolution, that we might recommend him to the members of the Anti-Corn-Law Association in the borough ; but if he did not, the League would certainly give the electors an opportunity of recording their votes in favour of a repealer, without any regard to the political opinions of the candidates then in the field. I concluded by saying that if the electors wished to hear, more authoritatively, the principles of the League, they would perhaps hear Mr. Rawson, its treasurer, and one of its earliest members. By this time Mr. Lyttelton and his law agent seemed to repent their public invitation to answer the question of the latter, and Mr. Rawson being called for expressed his unwillingness