That nothing would more tend to counteract the commercial hostility of foreign States than the adoption of a more enlightened and more conciliatory policy on the part of this country.
That, although, as a matter of mere diplomacy, it may sometimes answer to hold out the removal of particular prohibitions, or high duties, as depending upon corresponding concessions by other States in our favour, it does not follow that we should maintain our restrictions in cases where the desired concessions on their part cannot be obtained. Our restrictions would not be the less prejudicial to our capital and industry because other Governments persisted in preserving impolitic regulations.
That in thus declaring, as your petitioners do, their conviction of the impolicy and injustice of the restrictive system, and in desiring every practicable relaxation of it, they have in view only such parts of it as are not connected, or are only subordinately so, with the public revenue. As long as the necessity for the present amount of revenue subsists, your petitioners cannot expect so important a branch of it as the Customs to be given up, nor to be materially diminished, unless some substitute, less objectionable, be suggested. But it is against every restrictive regulation of trade not essential to the revenue—against all duties merely protective from foreign competition—and against the excess of such duties as are partly for the purpose of revenue and partly for that of protection, that the prayer of the present petition is respectfully submitted to the wisdom of Parliament.
[396] Quoted in Hirst, Free Trade and the Manchester School, pp. 118-121.
17. The Foundation of the Anti-Corn-Law League [History of the Anti-Corn-Law League by Archibald Prentice, I, pp. 101-2, 1853], 1839.
Resolutions of meeting of delegates at Manchester, January 23, 1839.
Resolved—1. That this meeting of representatives from all the great sections of our manufacturing and commercial population, solemnly declare it to be their conviction that the prosperity of the great staples upon which their capital and industry are employed, is in imminent danger from the operation of the laws which interdict or interfere with the exchange of their productions for the corn and other produce of foreign nations, and thus check our trade, and artificially enhance the price of food in this country; and believing that the facts upon which this judgment is formed are little known, and of such national importance as to call for their disclosure before the people's representatives, they earnestly recommend that petitions be immediately forwarded from all parts of the Kingdom, praying to be heard by counsel and evidence at the bar of the House of Commons in the approaching session of Parliament.
2. That in order to secure unity and efficiency of action this meeting recommends that delegates be appointed by the several Anti-Corn-Law Associations of the kingdom. Those manufacturing and commercial towns not already possessing such societies are earnestly recommended to form Anti-Corn-Law Associations; and in case they require information or advice, they are invited to put themselves immediately in correspondence with the Manchester Association, whose fundamental rule, prohibiting the discussion of any party or political topics, is especially recommended for the adoption of all similar bodies elsewhere.
3. That the agricultural proprietor, capitalist, and labourer are benefited equally with the trader, by the creation and circulation of the wealth of the country; and this meeting appeals to all those classes to co-operate for the removal of a monopoly which, by restricting the foreign commerce of the country, retards the increase of the population, and restrains the growth of towns; thus depriving them of the manifold resources to be derived from the augmenting numbers and wealth of the country.