LECTURE I.
MONDAY, 23rd JANUARY, 1843.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE QUESTION.
I have been asked by the Anti-Com-Law Committee of the Metropolitan Boroughs^ to address you on that question which now stirs to its depths the heart of England; that question between the selfish interests of the few—the very few—and the plain, broad rights of the many; that question, whether Britain shall henceforth be a great country or a little country; whether it shall recover from the debility and exhaustion under which it now labours, to run a new race of glory and happiness, or whether it shall finally and for ever succumb at the feet of a miserable monopolising minority—that question of questions which is shortly summed up in the words, "Corn-Law Monopoly and Free-Trade." With the resoluteness of men who know that they are right, that they have truth and justice at their back; with the fixity of purpose and the force of faith befitting men who know that right, truth and justice carry the day at last against all Parliamentary majorities, oligarchical obstructions, ministerial expediencies, plausibilities, tricks and shifts whatsoever; and with the cheerful hope inspired by past successes which, however valueless in themselves, are important as recognitions of a principle,—the movers in this Anti-Com-Law Agitation are determined to make a good finish of that which they have well begun, to come into closer and closer contact with the intellects and hearts of their countrymen, to send this agitation on and on in an ever-widening and deepening cur-
