12 BRITAIN FOE THE BRITON 



and 120,s. per quarter, yet, in spite of these phenomenal prices, 

 farmers were dissatisfied hecause of the enormous rents insisted 

 upon by land-owners, so that when the price fell below 40,s. per 

 quarter, as it did on a few occasions, they were practically 

 ruined. Manufacturing industries suffered a considerable check 

 during and after the war, and the hard times affected industrial 

 workers as well as others. Among all classes of the community 

 there was either actual distress, a feeling of discontent, or a 

 sense of unrest, and, when the reformers of the " thirties " and 

 " forties " of the last century entered upon their self-imposed 

 task, they undoubtedly found congenial surroundings and an 

 exceedingly fruitful soil to work in. Briefly, the period com- 

 mencing with the French war in 1793, and particularly after 

 its close in 1815, may be regarded as the most favourable period 

 in English history for economical reform. Adam Smith, 

 Eicardo, and other writers of the eighteenth century, had paved 

 the way for coming events ; Huskisson, Peel, Hume, and others 

 pointed the direction ; the Chartists rudely emphasised the 

 necessity for reform, and Cobden and his followers put the 

 finishing touch to the work that others had begun. 



Cobden's Strenuous Efforts 



Out of Cobden's strenuous efforts the "Anti-Corn Law 

 League " sprang, and this in turn gave birth to the greater — 

 Free-trade movement. Both of these movements had their 

 centre in Manchester, and were largely supported by Man- 

 chester merchants and manufacturers, as, indeed, was the case 

 throughout the Kingdom. The trade and industries of the 

 country were in an unsatisfactory condition ; men had sunk 

 their money in commercial or industrial enterprises, and many 

 of them were in a parlous state ; their work-people were 

 unemployed and in a starving condition, and who shall blame 

 them if they fought hard for their respective interests ? It has 

 often been said of this " League of the Lords of Industry" that 

 in so ardently championing the cause of the " Anti-Corn Law 

 League " they were but playing their own game and serving 

 their own interests. This grave charge is amply proved by 

 Cobden himself, who, in a speech at Manchester in 1843, fully 

 and frankly admitted that it was the case. He said — 



" I am afraid that most of us entered upon the struggle with the 

 belief that we had some distinct class-interest in the question," * 



and although the enormous importance of this fateful utterance 



has been whittled down and minimised by Cobden's biographers 



* Cobden's speech in Manchester, October 19, 1843. 



