On the 17th of February, 1844, a meeting was held at the Duke of Rich mond's house, London, which was at tended by several noblemen, and nearly fifty members of the House of Commons who were opposed to the principles of the Anti-Corn Law League. At this meet ing the Agricultural Protection Society of Great Britain' was formed. The op ponents of the Anti-Corn Law League had frequently represented that associa tion as an illegal body, and now that they were about to form an association pre cisely similar in constitution, they con- I suited Mr. Platt, Q.C. (now one of the barons of the Exchequer), who testified to the legality of the proceeding. But the energy and activity displayed by the League in appealing to public opinion, and boldly inviting public scrutiny of their principles, were not imitated by the Society; and its vigorous operations having succeeded in rousing general sen timent in their favour, they next sought to strengthen their influence in the Le gislature. The Registration Courts were vigilantly watched, with the twofold ob jects of excluding Protectionist voters and augmenting the number of liberals on the electorial lists. In consequence, several of the more conspicuous members of the League obtained seats in Parliament. The final issue of this celebrated struggle has been partly anticipated under the head of CORN LAWS, and all that re mains is to follow to its close the dis solution of the League itself, after victory had been achieved by a novel and ardent, yet peaceful agitation, in which great principles were sought to be carried by an appeal to the reason of the com munity.
On the opening of the parliamentary session of 1846, Sir R. Peel, as already stated, announced his conversion to the principles of the League, and his convic tion of the fallacy of the arguments on which Protectionist doctrines had been defended. Consistently with these con
clusions, the Minister introduced his measure, proposing a reduced scale of duties to continue for three years, and at the expiration of that period, namely, February 1849, only a mere registra tion duty of one shilling per quarter be levied on every quarter of corn im ported. On May 15th, the Corn Law Repeal Bill was read a third time in the House of Commons, and carried by 329 to 229, and on the 26th of June it re ceived the royal assent. The mission of the Anti-Corn Law League was of course ended, and a meeting was forthwith held (July 2nd) at the town-hall Manchester, to adopt measures for its suspension or dissolution. Mr. Cobden, who had been the able and indefatigable leader of the free-trade cause, moved a series of reso lutions: one for suspending the active operations of the League, and closing its affairs without delay ; another author rizing the revival of the League in case attempts should be made by the Protec tionists to induce the Legislature to re trace its steps; by a third, the chairman of the council was requested to accept of 10,0001. in acknowledgment of his in valuable services in the cause. A pub lic meeting was held in the same hall, at a later hour of the day, to adopt mea sures for raising a national testimonial to Mr. Cobden, whose pecuniary loss during the existence of the League was stated by the chairman, R. H. Greg, Esq., to be not less than 20,0001. A national subscription was agreed upon : the sum contributed at the meeting amounted to 18,500/. Ultimately, the national testimonial amounted to 79,9001., which Mr. Cobden, in a letter to the chairman, accepted as the reward of past labours, but not as iznoosing a lien on his future services.