nation into the rank of the monopolists. What has been done shows what may be done. Another year's labour in the same direction will repeal the corn-laws; but it must be labour redoubled. He who gave an hour's work to the good cause must now give two. He who gave a pound in money must now give more than two. We must not talk of a hundred thousand pounds' fund for the next campaigni, but one of a Quarter of a Million, There is a great reward in prospect—the continuance and the increase of the nowenjoyed prosperity. There is a great punishment in prospect if there be any remission of work for the emancipation of commerce—ruin to the employer and starvation to the employed. Every merchant, every spinner, every manufacturer, every holder of railway shares, every man who earns his daily bread by his daily labour, must now come to the rescue, determined to have an instant and total repeal of an enactment disgraceful to humanity, and to the profession of that Christianity which is said to be part and parcel of the law of the land."
By the middle of October, the almost total failure of the potato crop was too obvious to admit of dispute, and even the monopolist papers, seeing the possibility of millions of people being exposed to utter starvation, earnestly recommended liberal subscriptions to avert the dire calamity. The free traders feeling quite as acutely the necessity of some immediate movement to meet the approaching danger, and quite as willing to relieve the coming distress by liberal contributions, thought that much of its intensity might be averted by opening the ports to the admission of foreign provisions, and the cry of "open the ports" rung throughout the kingdom, startling, in their retreats, the ministers who had prorogued parliament without preparation to meet any such emergency. In the universal outcry and alarm, some of the supporters of monopoly, whether from fear or from humanity, began to exhibit symptoms of yielding. Lord Ashley, in addressing his constituents of
