406

LIFE OF COBDEN. {omar

148. Protection as a principle had long ago begun to give wal)
“Fin. 42," but it might have remained for as long time to come, if 1
had not been found in intolerable antagonism with the gro¥"
ing giant of industrial interests. ‘It is nob a piece of
cynicism, but an important truth, to gay that what bring®
great changes of policy is the spontaneous shifting and
readjustment of interests, not the discovery of mew pri’
ciples. What the League actually did was this. Its ene™
getic propagandism succeeded in making people believe in
general way that Free Trade was right, when the time should
come, When the Irish famine brought the crisis, publi©
opinion was prepared for the solution, and when protectio?
on corn had disappeared, there was nothing left to suppor?
protection on sugar and ships. Then, again, the perseve”
rance of the agitation had a more direct effect, as has beer
already seen from Cobden’s letters. It frightened the ruling
class. First, it prevented Peel, in the autumn of 1845, fro”
opening the ports by an order in council. Second, it forced
the Whigs out of their fixed duty. Third, it made the
House of Lords afraid of throwing out the repealing Bill.
There is another important circumstance which ought
not to be left out of sight. One secret of the power of th?
League both over the mind of Sir Robert Peel, and ove’
parliament, arose from the narrow character of the repre”
sentation at that time. The House of Commons to-day 15 #
sufficiently imperfect and distorting mirror of public judg”
ment and feeling. But things were far worse then. TH?
total number of voters in the country was not much mor?
than three quarters of a million ; six sevenths of the male
population of the country was excluded from any direc’
share of popular power; and property itself was so 0%"
fairly represented that Manchester, with double the valu?
of the property of Buckinghamshire, returned only +7
members, while Bucks returned eleven. It was on thi