“Geese! if we had you but on Sarum plain,
      We’d drive you cackling back to Camelot!”

So much for the boasted electoral triumphs of the Anti-corn-law League—­we repeat, that they are all mere moonshine, and challenge them to disprove our assertion.

They are now making another desperate effort to raise a further sum of a hundred thousand pounds; and beginning, as usual, at Manchester, have raised there alone, within a few days’ time, upwards of L.20,000!  The fact (if true) is at once ludicrous and disgusting:  ludicrous for its transparency of humbug—­disgusting for its palpable selfishness.  Will these proverbially hard-hearted men put down their L.100, L.200, L.300, L.400, L.500, for nothing?  Alas, the great sums they have expended in this crusade against the Corn-laws, will have to be wrung out of their wretched and exhausted factory slaves!  For how otherwise but by diminishing wages can they repay themselves for lost time, for trouble, and for expense?

Looked at in its proper light, the Corn-law League is nothing but an abominable conspiracy against labour.  Cheap bread means cheap labour; those who cannot see this, must be blind indeed!  The melancholy fact of the continually-decreasing price of labour in this country, rests on undisputable authority—­on, amongst others, that of Mr Fielding.  In 1825, the price of labour was 51 per cent less than in 1815; in 1830 it was 65 per cent less than in 1815, though the consumption of cotton had increased from 80,000,000 lbs. to 240,000,000 lbs.!  In 1835 it was 318,000,000 lbs., but the operative received 70 per cent less than in 1815.  In 1840 the consumption of cotton was 415,000,000 lbs., and the unhappy operative received 75 per cent less than in 1815!

If proofs be required to show that in reality the deadly snake, cheap labour, lurks among the flourishing grass, cheap bread, we will select one or two out of very many now lying before us, and prepared to be presented to the reader.

“If grain be high,” said Mr Ricardo, in the House of Commons,[31] “the price of labour would necessarily be a deduction from the profits of stock.”  “The Corn-laws raise the price of sustenance—­that has raised the price of labour; which, of course, diminishes the profit in capital."[32]

    [31] Debates, May 30, 1820.

    [32] Ib.  Dec. 24, 1819.

“Until the price of food in this country,” said Mr Hume, in the House of Commons on the 12th of May last, in the presence of all the leading free-trade members, “is placed on a level with that on the Continent, it will be impossible for us to compete with the growing manufactures of Belgium, Germany, France, and America!!”

Hear a member of the League, and of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Mr G. Sandars:—­

“If three loaves instead of two could be got for 2s., in consequence of a repeal of the Corn-laws, another consequence would be, that the workman’s 2s. would be reduced to 1s. 4d., which would leave matters, as far as he was concerned, just as they were!!"[33]

    [33] Authentic Discussions on the Corn-law, (Ridgway, 1839,)
    p. 86.