of church rate, the dissenter was justly told that the amount of the rate formed no deduction from his property, the same argument must apply to the landlord and the tithe. He was convinced that the present Corn Law could not long be maintained. Sir H. Douglas expressed, as the representative of Liverpool, his apprehension that the doctrine of free trade, pushed to its extreme, would work anything but welfare to the great interests of the country. He valued all the three great interests, trade, manufactures, and agriculture; but agriculture was the root of all. Ile believed that England was England's best customer; and that the distress now prevalent was attributable to our having already opened the sluices of free trade too wide. Mr. Muntz meant to vote with Mr. Villiers, not because he thought the protection to agriculture too large, but because he thought it too exclusively confined to land. It ought to have extended to labour also; whereas the labour of the cotton-spinners was now reduced by four-fifths of its value. He was grieved to say that the distress in Birmingham was undiminished, and that there appeared not even a prospect of its diminution. There was some little improvement in the trade of some other towns, but it was only speculative, having reference to India and China, where no permanent demand could be expected.
Mr. Cobden's speech was what might have been expected from a man of intellect and humanity; the one insulted by stale fallacies, the other outraged by the total want of sympathy with the people,—and all this endured for five weary nights. It is not astonishing that some acerbity was exhibited, and that the tone was that of one who felt little respect for the house which he addressed. He tore to very shreds the fallacies and pretences of the monopolists, and showed that their legislation was purely selfish, and as injurious to their own tenants and their labourers as to thie interests of trade. This he did in a bold, manly, and honest manner, that carried the war right into the enemy's
