true. From simple faith in the power of truth they headed the most
tremendous agitation known in England since the passage of the Reform
Bill. It was their mission to show conclusively to all intelligent
people that it was for the interest of the country to abolish the corn
laws, and that the manufacturing classes would be the most signally
benefited. To effect this purpose it was necessary to raise a large sum
of money; and the friends and advocates of the movement most liberally
subscribed to circulate the millions of tracts and newspapers which the
Association scattered into every hamlet and private family in England,
besides the members personally giving their time and effort in public
speeches and lectures in all parts of the country. "It was felt that the
battle of free-trade must be fought first by the conversion of
individuals, then at the hustings, and lastly in the House of Commons."

The principle of protecting the country against the importation of
foreign breadstuffs was upheld as fostering the agricultural interests,
as inciting the larger cultivation of poor lands, as providing against
dangerous dependence on foreign countries, and as helping the large
landowners and their tenants to patronize manufactures and trade; so
that, although the high prices of breadstuffs were keeping vast numbers
of people in misery and the country on the edge of revolution, the
protectionist doctrine was believed in religiously by the laboring
classes, the small shopkeepers, nearly all the educated classes, and a
large majority of the members of Parliament.

To combat this unshaken traditional belief was a gigantic undertaking.
It was the battle of reason and truth against prejudice and
bigotry,--the battle of a new enlightenment of general interests against
the selfishness of unenlightened classes. While Villiers and Thomson
appealed to members in the House of Commons, Cobden and Bright with