in manufactures, commerce, and agriculture. The League has declared the remedy to be, the abolition of the Corn Laws and all other monopolies.
"The League gratefully sees that the inhabitants of the metropolis entertain, in common with all other classes of their countrymen, an anxious desire to aid our common object.
"Your fellow-citizens of the Common Council of London, almost unanimously, and in a language too emphatic and impressive to be misunderstood, have denounced the Corn Laws in the following resolution:
"'HUMPHREY, Mayor.
A common council holden in the chamber of the Guildhall of the city of London, on Thursday, the 8th day of December, 1842,—
"'Resolved: That the continued and increasing depression of the manufacturing, commercial, and agricultural interests of this country, and the wide-spreading distress of the working classes, are most alarming:—manufacturers without a market, and shipping without freight; capital without investment, trade without profit; and farmers struggling under a system of high rents, with prices falling, as the means of consumption by the people fail; a working population rapidly increasing, and a daily decreasing demand for its labour; union houses overflowing as workshops are deserted; Corn Laws to restrain importation, and inducing a starving people to regard the laws of their country with a deep sense of their injustice. These facts call for the immediate application of adequate remedies. That this court anxiously appeals to the first minister of the crown to give practical effect to his declarations in favour of free trade, by bringing forward at the earliest possible period in the ensuing session of Parliament, such measures, for securing the unrestricted supply of food, and the employment of the people, as may effectually remove a condition of depression and distress too widely prevailing, and too rapidly increasing, to consist with the safety of the community, and the preservation of our social and political institutions.
The Council of the National Anti-Corn-Law League concurs in this faithful and humiliating description of the state of our beloved country, and it also cordially and fully approves this rightful course suggested for the restoration of our national prosperity. The League earnestly seeks
