itself in its full strength, it collapsed internally, before even it
collapsed externally on the 10th of April, 1848. The action of the
working-class was thrust into the background. The capitalist class
triumphed along the whole line.

"The Reform Bill of 1831 had been the victory of the whole capitalist
class over the landed aristocracy. The repeal of the Corn Laws was
the victory of the manufacturing capitalist not only over the landed
aristocracy, but over those sections of capitalists, too, whose
interests were more or less bound up with the landed
interest,--bankers, stock-jobbers, fund-holders, etc. Free Trade
meant the re-adjustment of the whole home and foreign, commercial and
financial policy of England in accordance with the interests of the
manufacturing capitalists--the class which now represented the nation.
And they set about this task with a will. Every obstacle to
industrial production was mercilessly removed. The tariff and the
whole system of taxation were revolutionised. Everything was made
subordinate to one end, but that end of the utmost importance to the
manufacturing capitalist: the cheapening of all raw produce, and
especially of the means of living of the working-class; the reduction
of the cost of raw material, and the keeping down--if not as yet the
_bringing down_--of wages. England was to become the 'workshop of the
world;' all other countries were to become for England what Ireland
already was,--markets for her manufactured goods, supplying her in
return with raw materials and food. England the great manufacturing
centre of an agricultural world, with an ever-increasing number of
corn and cotton-growing Irelands revolving around her, the industrial
sun. What a glorious prospect!

"The manufacturing capitalists set about the realisation of this their