74 The Revolution in Agriculture 



Yorkshire. Cobden was the hardest worker on the platforms of 

 the country. He showed most clearly in his speeches to large 

 audiences, as well as to members of the House of Commons, 

 what the most intelligent readers of Adam Smith had seen for 

 years. The question which the country had to decide was whether 

 the younger industries were to be given the fullest opportunity 

 to win the trade of the world in all they produced, or whether 

 the immediate interests of agriculture were to be secured, no 

 matter how much the cost of living and the cost of production 

 were increased. 



In a debate in the House of Lords on the I4th March, 1844, tne 

 Duke of Richmond argued that the prosperity of the farmers 

 should be guaranteed by keeping up the value of their produce, 

 and that the farmers would then be the best customers of the 

 manufacturers. Earl Fitzwilliam argued that the true source of 

 agricultural prosperity was a thriving condition of manufactures 

 and commerce. A Conservative Government was elected in 1841 

 pledged to support the Corn Law. The agitation of the anti- 

 Corn Law League had moved the country against the law, and 

 the arguments of Cobden had made Sir Robert Peel and Sir James 

 Graham, the leaders of the Government, convinced free-traders. 

 The failure of the potato crop in 1845 had caused a famine 

 in Ireland. Peel and Graham gave expression to their con- 

 victions. They carried the repeal of the Corn Law in 1846, to 

 take effect in 1849. They did this at the cost of their political 

 existence, for their party refused to have them any longer as 

 leaders. 



The fight over this question had been long and frequently 

 bitter, but the fact that the different classes in the country could 

 fight by argument and hold together while they settled great 

 issues of this kind gave promise of a better future. The period 

 from 1770 to 1850 had been one of progress not only in agriculture 

 but in all the affairs of the country It had been a time of restless 



