gy, )

TED ARGUMENT,

221

This was the skeleton of Cobden’s argument, and each 1845.
Retaber of was clothed with exactly the awount of Zr 4l
Eaphic illustrations from sound authorities that was calcnlatog
 ¢, bring the cage effectively home. The representatives
of the farmers were gurprised to be told of many things,
Which they immediately wondered that they had not thought
of before, The farmers of Kent, Suffolk, and Surrey,
*joyed protection in their hops, but they had in return
to Pay for the protection on other articles which they did
06 produce. Those: of Chester, Gloucester, and Wilts had
0 interest in protecting cheese, but they were heavily taxed
for the oats and beans which they wanted for their beasts.
The farmers in the Lothians had the bensfit of a restrictive
taty op, wheat, but this was a trifle compared with the disad-Tibtage
 of having to pay duty on linseed cake and other items
*f provender for cattle. Everybody, in short, was taxed for
the benefit of everybody else. If the farmer derived so little
800d fro, protection, the labourer derived still less. Members
ero startled $0 be told that more goods had been exported to
Brae. in & year than had been consumed in the same time
by the whole agricultural peasantry and their families in
Boglang ; that no labourer in England spent more than thirty
“billing a vear in manufactures, if the article of shoes were
Xoepted ; that the same class did not pay fifteen shillings a
beag Per annum to the revenue, and that the whole of their
“ntributions to the revenue did not amount to three quar-B18
 of 5 million a year. This, said Cobden triumphantly, is
the Pass to which thirty years of Protection have brought the
*Briculinry] interest. © There never wag a xnore monstrous
Selugion than to suppose that that which goes to increase
the trade of the country, and to extend its manufactures
nd Commerce ; that which increases our population, enlarges
te Ramber of your customers, and diminishes your burdens
J Dultiplying the shoulders that sre to bear them, and