Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/233

spontaneous work of the tenant farmers. What he was telling them was known to the whole community. There was not a man from the counties, where these meetings were got up, who would not corroborate what he was stating. The land agent had the finger of the landlord. He had but to point it, and the farmer did the bidding, knowing that it was the bidding of the landlord at second-hand. * * He was jealous of their taking the tenant farmers' name in vain. The League was told that its members had been abusive to the farmers, and therefore that the farmers had turned against them. Now, if there was a champion who had more consistently than another stood up for the farmers' rights and interests, he was that man. * * * If he was a farmers' enemy, he had not been afraid to trust himself amongst the farmers. But the landlords would not meet him there. He had often asked them to choose what county they liked to call a public meeting, and to take the vote of the farmers for or against the Corn Laws. But no they never would consent, because they knew that they would be outvoted if they did." Mr. Cobden enlarged on the fact that the Corn Laws were injurious to the farmers and all classes alike. He excepted the clergy. "If there was a class which did benefit by the Corn Law, it was the clergy. The Tithe Commutation Act fixed their income at a certain number of quarters of corn per annum. If a clergyman got 200 quarters of corn for tithe, and the price was 40s., he received four hundred pounds; and if the price was 50s., he received five hundred pounds per annum. Was that a right position for the clergy to be placed in? That they who prayed for plenty should have an interest in the maintenance of scarcity? He put it to the clergy whether, with this one fact glaring forth to the world, they could, in consistency with their own character, be seen going about to Anti-League meetings declaring for the maintenance of the Corn Law? They would not be fit to sit as jurors upon the Corn Law; they