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Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.

in the House of Commons, "the honour and gratification of his acquaintance," may truly say that Mr. Villiers never acted in the matter with the view to make capital for himself out of it, and was really too well pleased with the result of all that had occurred, ever to complain of being deliberately snuffed out for the sake of the greater glorification of others. Mr. Villiers himself stated that being by birth connected with the landed interest, and having no kind of connection whatever with manufactures,[1] he could not have acted in the matter under the stimulus of commercial avarice. Mr. Villiers, in one of his speeches, used some words which are full of meaning, though as in the case of Antony's speech over Cæsar's body, they are somewhat misleading since Antony, while saying, "I am no orator as Brutus is," was far more of an orator than Brutus.

"I am no orator," said Mr. Villiers in His speech in Covent Garden Theatre, July .3, 1844; "I simply stated facts in support of my Resolutions, disclosing the distress of the people. And I asked for an answer; I asked for a proof that the Corn Laws were not an injury to the people."[2]


  1. Speech at Colchester, July 8, 1843. Villiers's Free Trade Speeches, vol. ii., p. 53.
  2. Villiers's Free Trade Speeches, vol. ii., p. 186.