stones, and mud, and exercise their lungs with groans and hootings. But they were not now to be enlisted in such a warfare. They did not find that they were the happy Arcadians the landowners would have them supposed to be. They had indeed, "the clear sky above them and the green fields before them; but they had poverty and wretchedness in their hovels. They now saw plainly enough that corn-law legislation had done nothing to improve their unhappy condition. They would not now listen to descriptions of the dirty avocations pursued in smoky and unhealthy towns. They would rather have had such employment than starve, or be transported to the colonies, or imprisoned in the Union Workhouses. "What is the reason" asked Mr. Cobden, "that agricultural labourers troop into the manufacturing districts? Simply because the wages in those districts are better, and the employment more continuous, than in the agricultural districts. When the landowners denounce the manufacturing system, let them bear in mind that there must be something worse behind to induce the agriculturists to come in crowds to seek work in the manufacturing districts," The labourers knew all this, and therefore they were no longer to be compelled to oppose, with offensive missiles, or strong lungs, men whom they now believed to be more really their friends than those who professed to be legislating for their especial benefit.
The defeats in towns surrounded by a purely agricultural population were not to be attributed merely to the greater ease with which a town's population was mustered. No coercion could bring the labourers, or if it could, it would not then be resorted to, for it was known that they would only add to the number who voted for "the principles of common sense." And when the farmers were brought together the result was only that they were converted. At Canterbury they met and peaceably joined in a vote, that it was inexpedient to have any discussion with Messrs.
