to set to the manufacturing districts was not merely checked, but it was rolling back upon them a desolating tide of pauperism. He said, and he was soon to set an example in the course he recommended, "with regard to our future tactics, as we are rather a practical body, I should most certainly recommend that we pay a visit, as soon as the harvest is over, to the agricultural districts. (Hear, hear.) We shall be very unwelcome visitors, but no matter about that; we must go into the rural districts, and we must teach the people there that they have a common interest with ourselves in getting rid of these monopolies. We shall find enlightened friends in the agricultural districts in all directions; Let us cultivate their acquaintance; and don't let us look upon this as a manufacturers' question. Low prices of corn are coming upon them; high rents, contemporaneously with low prices, will make them ready listeners to our lectures. Let us show them that, with a repeal of the Corn Laws, though they might no longer obtain high prices for their produce, the landowners would not have the power of extorting from them their present enormous rents, when corn had jumped down to 40s. a quarter. Let us explain this to the farmers; and let us show the labourers that they were better off with corn at 40s. a quarter, than they have been during the last three years, when it was 70s. Let us teach them these things, and let us do it in the spirit of kindness and conciliation."
Mr. Cobden's advice was followed. Soon after this period the question became a national one—and the movement was as much directed upon the agricultural as upon the manufacturing districts.
