384
COVENT GARDEN MEETING.
until the corn shall come entirely free. Thirdly, you may come to the principle of total and immediate repeal. (Cheers.) The policy of that principle the government had acknowledged, but they would not apply the principle at the present moment, nor would they say when they would do it. What were they thinking of then as a mode of repealing the Corn Laws? He knew very well. They were prepared in a time of scarcity and famine to repeal the Corn Laws. (Hear, hear.) Was that statesmanlike? They told the farmers the Corn Laws were to be repealed, and then they told their tools of the press to deal out, in their diurnal twaddle, that if the Corn Laws were repealed the farmers would not be able to pay their rents, (Hear, hear.) They thus kept the farmer upon the tenter-books of suspense. They alarmed him with all sorts of raw-head-and-bloody-bone stories that free trade would inflict upon them, and yet the premier tells them he was about to repeal the Corn Laws. What was the policy morally? They waited for a period of famine. They waited for the day when Palace Yard should be crowded with famishing thousands. (Cheers.) Was not that teaching the people of the country that moral principle had no influence over their legislation. (Cheers.) They might have a small duty of 8s., and sliding off a shilling every year. What effect had that upon the farmers? The farmer was told by the agent or the landlord that they had passed a law for å fixed duty of 8s., and that they would see how that operated. The farmer goes on, rent day comes on; he goes to pay his rent, and is then told to wait another year; and when the duty comes down to 3s., the foreigners are told that the door will be opened wide for the importation of foreign corn, and the farmer is then to be swamped under an inundation of foreign corn under the sliding scale. When were they to have total and immediate repeal? Why, he said now. (Cheers.) What was there to be afraid of in the total and in. mediate repeal? They were told there was a large quantity of grain hoarded up abroad, ready to be poured into this country. Mr. Cobden again referred to a leader in the Times on this subject. He said of it, that it was profound philosophy invested with all the charms of poetical language. (Cheers.) Let them, however, take the language of experience. In 1839, 1810, and 1841, the average price of wheat was 67s. a quarter. The world was ransacked for corn to supply this country during those years. In one year every region on the face of the globe was searched for corn. In 1839, 2,945,605 quarters of corn were brought to this country; in 1840, 2,432,765; and in 1811, 2,713,602 quarters, making a total of 8,091,972 quarters in three years. That corn was all brought here under the conviction that it would be allowed to come in at the Is. duty. Now, that corn was brought to this country when the price was 67s., and now it is rather more than 40s., and little foreign
