The Descent of the Landlords. 415 



Russell had by his Bill not so much injured as furthered the 

 cause of the landed gentry ; secondly, that the manufactur- 

 ing community was not as yet as interested in the Corn Law 

 agitation as had been imagined. Hume openly denied to the 

 House that any particular burden fell on trade by reason of 

 the later Com Laws, and O'Connor, Lord Althorp, and Heath- 

 cote followed in the same strain. " If any," writes Prentice 

 of this period, " who had access to any of his Majesty's Minis- 

 ters as are supposed to be favourable to the abolition of the 

 bread tax — to Mr. Poulett Thomson, for instance — were to 

 ask him : "Why don't you repeal the Corn Laws, which you 

 acknowledge to be bad in principle and oppressive in operation, 

 the answer would probably be, ' What can we do ? we have 

 the landed interest, bound together as one man, to oppose 

 the opening of the trade in corn, while the manufacturing 

 communities utter not one word of complaint against the 

 monopoly.' " ^ 



Baffled here, the leaders of the agitation determined to go 

 out into the highways and hedges, and appeal to the stomachs 

 of the ignorant rather than to the brains of the intelligent. 

 The "Repeal of the Corn Laws" was re-christened, "the 

 abolition of the bread tax," and poles decorated with the large 

 and small loaf became the recognised emblems of the agitation. 

 Some were inclined to await a more opportune moment for 

 commencing the new crusade. 1834 was a remarkably boun- 

 tiful season, and it was seen that a bad wheat harvest would 

 more effectually further the cause of Repeal with the hungry 

 man. But the Lancashire merchants found means of political 

 capital even here. "See," they said to their weavers and 

 cotton spinners, " the landlords are your natural enemies. 

 The causes which tend to fill your Saturday's baskets lighten 

 their purses. The cheapness of provisions makes them cry out 

 while it puts an end to the wailing in your streets. ' Heaven- 

 sent bounty is to you a blessing, to them a curse.' " " The 

 loyalists of 1793 were not more horror-struck at the murder 

 of Marie Antoinette than the landowners of England at the 

 bountiful harvests of 1822 and 1834." 



' History of the League. A. Prentice, p. 34, vol. i. 



