iy,
4 ARGUMENT OF THE SPEECH. 319

Commons, as well as admirable examples of effective seleebon,
 luminous arrangement, and honest cogency of reasoning
 Ibricate and dificult matter. Besides all this, they show
ho W completely Cobden had worked out the whole concepfon,
 of economic policy and the whole scheme of statesanship,
 of which the repeal of the Corn Law was only a
eta) and a condition precedent. Many of the subscribers
% the League were no doubt only thinking that Free
Trade would bring them new armies of good customers.
The Whigs, on the other hand, while sincerely concerned for
ne Social state of the realm, picked up the notion of Free
rade vaguely, along with education and colonization, as
"5 remedy among others. Cobden alone seemed to discern
What Free Trade weant, how it was being forced upon us
by increase of population and other causes, and how many
“hanges it would bring with it in the whole social strucbre,
 was this commanding grasp of the entire policy
°f hig subject, which gradually gave Cobden such a hold
"Ver the recoptive intelligence of Sir Robert Peel that at
las i amounted to a fascination that was irresistible.
Why are the farmers distressed? Cobden asked. Why
Bre English farmers less successful than English manufacturepg
 ? Because they are working their trade with
sufficient capital. Throughout BEugland, south of the
Trong and including Wales, the farmers’ capital is not more
thug five pounds an acre, whereas for carrying on the
: "Sines successfully is ought to be twice as much. How
it that in 5 country overflowing with capital, where every
ther pursuit is abounding with money, when money is
Bog to France for railways and to Pennsylvania for
bongs, when it is connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific
by Canals, and diving to the bottom of the Mexican mines
for investments, it yet finds no employment in the most
Wractive of all gpots, the soil of this country itself? The

1845.
Er, 41.