OAR. VL] NARROW BAGINNING OF THE STRUGGLE. 14)

“ that most of ng entered upon this strugele with the belief 1838.
that we had some distinot class-interest in the question, Zin. 84
and that we should carry it by a manifestation of onr will in
this district, against the will and consent of other portions
of the community”! There was in this nothing that is
either astonishing or discreditable. The important fact was
that the clags-interest of the manufacturers and merchants
happened to fall in with the good of the rest of the com-Munity
 ; while the class-interess against which they were
going up to do battle, was an uncompensated burden on the
whole commonwealth. Besides this, it has been observed on
a hundred occasions in history, that a good cause takes on in
its Progress larger and unforescen elements, and these in
their urn bring out the nobler feelings of the best among its
soldiers. So it was here. The class-interest widened into
the consciousness of a commanding national interest. In
raising the question of the bread-tax, and its pestilent effects
on their own trade and on the homes of their workmen, the
Lancashire men were involuntarily opening the whole
question of the condition of England.
The backbone of the discussion in its strictly local aspect
was in the question which Cobden and his friends at this
bime kept incessantly asking. With a population increasing
at the rate of a thoussnd souls a day, how can wages be
kept up, unless there be constantly increasing markets found
for the employment of labour; and how can foreign countries
buy our manufactures, unless we tale in return their corn,
timber, or whatever else they are able to produce ? Apart,
moreover, from increase of population, is it not clear that if
capitalists were free to exchange their productions for the
corn of other countries, the workmen would have abundant
employment at enhanced wages? A still more formidable
Argument even than thege lay in the months of the petitioners.
! Spesoh at Munchester, Oot. 19. 1848.