I] THE CORN QUESTION iN ...” LIAMEXT, 149

the kingdom, to enforce a prayer that had been urged by
belf & million of petitioners. But the motion, after a debate A. 85.
which extended over five nights, received only one hundred
and ninety.seven votes out of a House of five hundred and
forty-one, The delegates returned to their homes with the
conviction that they bad still a prolonged struggle before
them, In the picturesque phrase of a contemporary writer,
their departure was like the break-up of a Mahratta camp;
i did not mean that the war was over, but only that attack
would be renewed from another quarter. Some of them
Were inclined to despond, but the greater part almost
instantly came round to the energetic mind of Cobden. He
recalled the delegates to the fact that in spite of the House
over the way, they represented three millions of the people.
He compared the alliance of the great towns of England to
the League of the Hanse Towns of Germany. That League
had turned the castles which crowned the rocks slong the
Rhine, the Danube, and the Elbe into dismantled memorials
of the past, and the new league would not fail in dismantling
the legislative stronghold of the new feudal oppressors in
England. No time was lost in strengthening their organization
 by drawing isolated societies to an effective centre.
Measures were speedily taken (March) for the formation of a
Permanent union, to be called the Anti-Corn-Law League,
bo bo composed of all the towns and districts that were re-Presented
 in the delegation, and of as many others as might
be induced to form local associations and federate them with
the League. The executive committee of the old Manchester
 Anti-Corn-Law Association was transformed into
the council of the new Anti-Corn-Law League. With the
same view of securing unity of action, the central offices
were established in Manchester, whence from this time
forward the national movement was directed.
The impatience of the free-traders had been irritated.

1889.