[75

LIFE OF COSDEN,

[oHA?

S4L tion of that most dificult of all audiences, It sound®
r a new key, and startled men by an accent that was strang®
in the House of Commons. The thoughtful among the?
recognized the rare tone of reality, and the note of a ma’
dealing with things and not words. He produced that
singular and profound effect which is perceived in English
deliberative assemblies, when a speaker leaves party recrim!”
nations, abstract argument, and commonplaces of sentiment
in order to inform his hearers of telling facts in th?
condition of the nation. Cobden reminded the House tha?
it was the condition of the nation, and not the interests of
a class, or the abstract doctrines of the economist, that
cried for a relief which it was in the power of the legis”
tabure to bestow. This was the point of the speech. IP
spite of the strong wish of everybody on the side of the
majority, and of many on the side of the minority, to keep
the Corn Law out of the debate, Cobden insisted that th
Corn Law was in reality the only matter which at tha?
moment was worth debating at all. The family of a noble”
man, he showed the House, paid to the bread tax about 0%°
halfpenny on every hundred pounds of income, while £he
effect of the tax on the family of the labouring man W#*
not less than twenty per cent. A fact of this kind, as they
said of Pericles’s speeches, left a sting in the minds of his
hearers. The results of the injustice were seen in the
misery of the population. A great meeting of ministers of
religion of all sects had been held in Manchester a fow day
before, and Cobden told the House something of the Jest
tution throughout the country, to which these men had
borne testimony.
“ At that meeting,” he said, “ most important statement*
of facts were made relating to the condition of the labouring’
classes. He would not trouble the House by reading tho
statements ; but they showed that in every district of the