41 6 History of the English Landed Interest. 



Nothing could be more venomous and extravagant than the 

 language used at this period in order to arouse the mob against 

 the landlords. Agriculturists are described in one and the 

 same breath as eating, drinking, and merry-making in glee 

 over their full garners, and at the same time as being forced 

 \)^ the distress occasioned b}^ abundant crops to demand of 

 Parliament more protection.^ 



After the deficient harvest of 1836 the price of corn rose, a 

 pressure came upon the mone}^ market, several banks stopped 

 payment, and a commercial panic was only averted by drastic 

 measures. The Radicals, of course, asserted that had the 

 importation of corn been as regular as that of cotton, nothing 

 of the sort would have occurred. An organisation antago- 

 nistic to protection, and headed by Hume, Grote and Roebuck, 

 owed its inception to this crisis. Two years later, seven 

 merchants founded the celebrated Manchester school of poli- 

 ticians ; and on March 20, 1839, a virulence and an energy 

 hitherto unknown was imported into the controversy by the 

 formation of the famous Anti-Corn-Law League. The in- 

 tolerant language used outside Parliament soon affected the 

 amenities of debate within. Villiers, who in the session of 

 1840 had as usual introduced the perennial proposal that a 

 committee of the whole House should sit and examine the Corn 

 Laws, was insulted and hooted down. If this was the kind of 

 reception the reconstituted House was disposed to give to the 

 Radical claims, it seemed as though the only resource for the 

 Manchester school was still further agitation. But this tem- 

 porary outburst of passion was the last effort of a despairing 

 cause. In fact, both sides had found that violence would not 

 further their respective ends. By menacing the Melbourne Min- 

 istry with the popular fury, the advocates of free trade would 

 probably have lost more political influence than they would 

 have gained. For the one or two recruits inside Parliament that 

 could be won over by intimidation, the Protectionists would 

 by extravagance of language have completely alienated double 

 that number of doubting minds. "With the goal almost within 

 reach, the Anti-Corn-Law League, therefore, wisely decided 

 * History of the LccKjite. A. Prentice, pp. 44, 45, etc., vol. i. 



