in order to insure the success of this question in the next session of Parliament."
The meeting was subsequently addressed by Mr. Duncan Mc.Laren, now (1852) Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Mr. Thomas Bazley, Mr. John Bright, and Mr. John Brooks; all of whom expressed their belief that the proposed £50,000 fund would be promptly raised, so as to permit an expenditure of a thousand pounds a-week for twelve months, if the Corn Laws existed so long. The protectionist press affected to laugh at this as a vain boast; and when the feat was accomplished, affected to believe that nothing but paper promises had been made, which nobody intended to pay.
Meeting of the League, October 13th,. addressed by Mr. Cobden, the Rev. Charles Baker, of Stockport, Mr. L. Heyworth, of Liverpool, and others. After this meeting, the council of the League issued an address, from which the following is an extract:—
"Our aim has been to have no one individual destitute of the means of perceiving how injurious the taxation on food is to himself and the community. To the influence by which it is supported we have opposed the power of reason and the claims of justice; and we have met by facts the sophisms by which it is palliated. For this end, not fewer than 2,000 lectures have been delivered on the subject of the Corn Laws; more than five millions of tracts have been printed and circulated; petitions have been presented to the legislature with millions of signatures, praying for the redress of the great wrong under which the country groans; our conference, formed by deputations from various parts of the kingdom, has five times met in the metropolis to remonstrate with the executive government and the legislature; the ministers of religion have met, in large numbers, in Manchester, Edinburgh, and Carnarvon, protesting against the demoralizing influences (which they had witnessed) of that policy which interferes betwixt man and the bounties of Providence. In combination with an extent of personal exertion, such as no merely political agitation could have called forth, an expenditure has been incurred, and defrayed, of not less than one hundred thousand pounds. And still, though much has been accomplished; though the principles of free trade are rapidly extending themselves from our cities and large towns into remote agricultural districts;
