274
Lift OF COBDEN,
FomAR.
1843. At Aylesbury, which was the stronghold of the Duke of
Hr. 39, Buckingham, after his address, Cobden was confronted by #
long list of guestions from an anonymous inquirer, Would
not Free Trade lower the price of corn and the means of
employing labour, from thirty to fifty per cent.? Did the
members of the League think the existing price of the
yuartern loaf, which was then fivepence, too high for eithe”
producer or consumer? Cobden answered them with bi
asual dexterity, and wound up with the crucial questio®
on his own part; namely, in what way farmers and farm”
labourers had profited by the Corn Laws since 18157 A
resolution approving of the principles of Free Trade wa
then put and carried with a few dissentients—so fow, thal
Lord Nugent, who was in the chair, said they were aboub
a8 many as would have held up their hands in favour of
Free Trade five and twenty years before. At Uxbridg®
the farmers who usually attended the corn-market, invited
Cobden. to explain his views fo them. The arrangement?
for the meeting were left entirely in their own hands. The
tickets of admission were issued by the farmers, and dis
posed of by them ; the county was ransacked for supporters
of monopoly, and the discomfiture of the prophet of the
League was confidently predicted. The audience was more
sxclusively composed of farmers than any that had yeb
been held. When the time came, four gentlemen, on
after another, advocated the cause of monopoly as ably
as they could, and the discussion between them on the on
hand. and Cobden and Josenh Hume on the other lasted
sultural view of the Free Trade question—the moat successful speech I over
made—that several county members asked me where my land lay, thinking
{ must be an experienced proprietor and farmer. I told them I did not 0W2
sn acre, but that I owed my knowledge to the best farmer of my acquaint”
tence, which I have always considered you to be.” —Cobden to R. Lattimor®
April 20, 1864. The speech referred to as the most successful he ever rade
| presume to be that of March 18. 1843. No. xv. in the collected wneechot.
