Designed by
J. Flaxman, R.A.] [In the Royal Collection.
SILVER GILT BOWL.
This beautiful specimen of art workmanship was made for King George IV. when Prince of Wales; the gilding alone cost £2,000. The ladle was made for the baptism of the present Prince of Wales.
This League was a remarkable organisation under a no less remarkable leader. Richard Cobden, the son of a yeoman farmer, was employed in his youth in a London warehouse, and then became partner in a Manchester cotton factory. He first attracted notice as a pamphleteer, attacking some of the most cherished traditions of British statesmanship. He travelled far and wide on the business of his firm, and in every country he visited his thoughtful mind gathered material for the doctrines inseparably associated with his name. |The Pioneers of Free Trade.| He first entered Parliament in 1841, being recognised at that time as the leader of the movement in the country against the corn duties. Mr. Charles Villiers had won for himself the position of parliamentary head of the Free Trade party; to him Cobden came not as a rival but as a wise, resourceful ally. A third figure was soon to be added to this famous group in the person of John Bright, a Quaker manufacturer in Rochdale. A notable trio, each supplying the complement of the other’s qualities; Villiers, of aristocratic birth and connections, well acquainted with the rules and peculiar temperament of the House of Commons, ardent, industrious, and well informed; Cobden, a man of the people, temperate, just, “the apostle of common-sense,” and singularly persuasive; Bright, intensely—sternly in earnest, possessing gifts of oratory denied to his colleagues, but exercising them with a discretion rare among fluent speakers. Lastly, one attribute shared equally by each of the three men—absolute integrity and complete disinterestedness. They were Radicals, but they dissociated themselves from all ties of political party, looking for no reward from either side, but ready to support any Minister who would carry out their views. Their appeal was addressed to the understanding, not to the passions, of men: their aim was to secure cheap food for the masses, but they never stooped to inflammatory tirades against the classes. Hence the steady, rapid growth of the League, and its irresistible influence on the Queen’s Ministers. Mr. Villiers had advocated for many years the total abolition of the corn duties, and nothing less would now satisfy the League. Russell, who scouted the very idea of absolutely free imports, had yielded so far as to propose, in 1841, a fixed duty on foreign corn, greatly less than the existing rate, which varied between 27s. and 1s. per quarter, according to the market price. Peel came forward in 1842 with a more liberal remission of duty, but although his Bill was passed by a very large majority, all it did was to make the country party behind him uneasy without conciliating the Anti-Corn Law people. No one but men of the Manchester school—“Cobdenites,” as they afterwards came to be called—no one, either Whig or Tory, dreamt of denying that protection was desirable, even necessary, for agriculture. Peel’s first measure was framed to protect wheat growers against a fall in the average price below 56s. a quarter, and also to protect the consumer against a higher price. But the corn duties had been fixed in 1815: a whole generation had grown up under them: their outworks could not be tampered with without risking the stability of the whole structure. It required a momentum of extraordinary force to carry the movement against them to success. That impetus came, in the autumn of 1845, from two sources equally unforeseen. |Failure of Potato Crop in Ireland.| First arrived news of a destructive disease, wasting the potato crop in Ireland. Potatoes had grown to be to the Irish peasant what wheat is to English, what oats still were to Scottish labourers. The Government were informed that one-third of the food of the people was already destroyed, that the disease was still spreading, and no estimate could be formed of how much of the crop could be saved. Deadly disaster was imminent, and the Cabinet was summoned to many anxious deliberations. The Prime Minister advocated that in order to avert famine all ports should be thrown open to corn ships. He coupled this advice with the warning that, once the duties were suspended, he did not think it would be possible to re-establish them. The warning weighed more with the Cabinet than the advice. Three Ministers only—Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Sidney Herbert—supported Peel’s proposal. It was set aside, and a Commission was appointed instead to take measures to mitigate the immediate necessity in Ireland.
H. G. Hine.] [From “Punch.”
GENUINE AGITATION.
A Scene from “Julius Cæsar,” with Wellington as Ghost.
In reply to questions drawing attention to the Repeal Agitation in Ireland, the Duke of Wellington in the Lords, and Sir Robert Peel in the Commons, expressed (May 9, 1843) the resolution of the Government to uphold the Union at all costs, and hinted at the probable adoption of coercive measures. The artist has made O’Connell himself the victim of agitation at this implied threat.