The law is, in fact, a law of the most ingeniously malignant character. It is fenced about in every possible way. The most demoniacal ingenuity could not have invented a scheme more calculated to bring millions of the working classes of this country to a state of pauperism, suffering, discontent, and insubordination than the Corn Law which we are now opposing.

This law is the parent of many of those grievous fluctuations in trade under which so much suffering is created in this commercial kingdom. There is a period coming- it may be as bad or worse than the last- - when many a man, now feeling himself independent and comfortable in his circumstances, will find himself swept away by a torrent and his goodly ship made a complete wreck. Capital avails almost nothing; fluctuations in trade we have, such as no prudence can guard against. We are in despair one year, and in a state of great excitement in the next. At one time ruin stares us in the face, at another we fancy that we are getting rich in a moment. Not only is trade sacrificed, but the moral character of the country is injured by the violent fluctuations created by this law. And now have we a scarcity coming or not? They say that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and that a famine foretold never comes. And so this famine could not have come if the moment we saw it to be coming we had had power to relieve ourselves by supplies of food from abroad. The reason why a famine foretold never comes, is because when it is foreseen and foretold, men prepare for it, and thus it never comes. But here, though it has been both foreseen and foretold, there is a law passed by a paternal legislature, remaining on the statute book, which says to twenty-seven millions of people, "Scramble for what there is, and if the poorest and the weakest starve, foreign supplies shall not come in for fear some injury should be done to the mortgaged landowners."

Two centuries ago the people of this country were engaged in a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic and treacherous monarch assumed to himself the right to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament and the people.

That assumption was

resisted. This fair island became a battlefield, the kingdom was convulsed, and an ancient throne overturned. And if our forefathers two hundred years ago resisted that attempt, if they refused to be bondmen of a king, shall we be the born thralls of an aristocracy like ours? Shall we who struck the lion down, shall we pay the wolf homage? or shall we not, by a manly and united expression of public opinion, at once and forever put an end to this giant wrong?

Our case is at least as good as theirs. We stand on higher vantage ground; we have large numbers at our back; we have more of wealth, intelligence, union, and knowledge of the political rights and the true interests of the country; and, what is more than all this, we have a weapon, a power, and machinery, which is a thousand times better than that of force, were it employed — I refer to the registration, for that is the great constitutional weapon which we intend to wield, and by means of which we are sure to conquer, our laurels being gained, not in bloody fields, but upon the hustings and in the registration courts. Now I hope that if this law be repealed within the next six months, and if it should then be necessary that this League should disperse, I trust that the people of England will bear in mind how great a panic has been created among the monopolist rulers by this small weapon, which we have discovered hid in the Reform Act and in the Constitution of the country. I would implore the middle and working classes to regard it as the portal of their deliverance, as the strong and irresistible weapon before which the domination of this hereditary peerage must at length be laid in the dust.

DEFENSE OF CANADA

This speech was delivered in the House of Commons, March 13, 1865. Mr. Bright, the stanch friend of America and the eloquent advocate of peace, can see no reason why the government of the United States should desire to molest Canada unless forced to do so by the hostile attitude of England. He believes that these two peoples of common language and origin should "march abreast" and ever be the "guardians of freedom and justice."

I hope the debate on the defense of Canada will be useful, though I am obliged to say that I think it is one of some delicacy. Its importance is great, because it refers to the possibility of a war with the United States, and its delicacy arises from this, that it is difficult to discuss the question without saying things which tend rather in the direction of war than of peace. The difficulty now before us is that there is an extensive colony or dependency of this country adjacent to the United States, and if there be a war party in the United States, that circumstance affords it a very strong temptation to enter without much hesitation into a war with England, because it feels that through Canada it can inflict a great humiliation on this country. It is perfectly well known to all intelligent men, and especially to all statesmen and public men of the United States, that there is no power whatever in this United Kingdom to defend successfully the territory of Canada against the United States. We ought to know that in order to put ourselves right upon the question, and that we may not be called upon to talk folly and to act folly.

I beg leave to tell the House that there are millions of men who, by their industry, not only have created but sustained the fabric of our national power, who have had no kind of sympathy with the men whom I am condemning. They are more generous and wise. They have shown that magnanimity and love of freedom are not extinct among us. If the bond of union and friendship between England and the United States remain unbroken, we have not to thank the wealthy and the cultivated, but the laborious millions, whom statesmen and historians too frequently

make little account of. They know something of the United States that the honorable gentlemen opposite and some on this side of the House do not know that every man of them would be welcome on the American continent if they chose to go there, that every right and privilege which the greatest and highest in that country enjoy would be theirs, and that every man would have given to him by the United States a free gift of one hundred and sixty acres of the most fertile land in the world. Honorable gentlemen may laugh, but that is a good deal to a man who has no land, and I can assure them that this Homestead Act has a great effect on the population of the north of England. I can tell them, too, that the laboring population of these counties, the artisans and the mechanics, will give you no encouragement to any policy that is intended to estrange the people of the United States from the people of the United Kingdom.

The loss of life has Happily for them, it was France, or to keep the

But, sir, we have other securities for peace not less than these, and I find them in the character of the government and people of the American Union. The right honorable gentleman referred to what might reasonably be supposed to happen in case the rebellion was suppressed. He did not think when a nation was exhausted that it would rush rashly into a new struggle. been great, the loss of treasure enormous. not to keep a Bourbon on the throne of Turks in Europe. It was for an object which every man can comprehend who examines it by the light of his own intelligence and his own conscience; and if men have given their lives and possessions for the attainment of the great end of maintaining the integrity and unity of a great country, the history of the future must be written in a different spirit from the history of the past, if she expresses any condemnation of that temper. But Mr. Lincoln is President of the United States now for the second term; he was elected exclusively at first by what was termed the Republican party, and he has been elected now by what may be called the great Union party of the nation. But Mr. Lincoln's party has always been for peace. That party in the North has never carried on any war of

aggression, and has never desired one. Now, speaking only of the North, of the free states, let the House remember that landed property, and indeed property of all kinds, is more universally diffused there than in any other nation, and that instruction and school education are also more widely diffused. Well, I say they have never hitherto carried on a war for aggression or for vengeance, and I believe they will not begin one now. Canada is, indeed, a tempting bait. The noble lord agrees that it is a very tempting bait, not for purposes of annexation, but of humiliating this country. It is admitted that once at war with the United States for any cause, Canada cannot be defended by any power on land or at sea which this country could raise or spare for that purpose.

My honorable friend referred to a point which, I suppose, has really been the cause of this debate, and that was the temper of the United States in making some demands upon our government. Well, I asked a question the other evening, whether we had not claims upon them. If any man has a right to go to law with another, he is obliged to go into court and the case must be heard before the proper tribunal. And why should it not be so between two great nations and two free governments? If one has claims against the other, nothing can be more fair than that those claims should be courteously and honestly considered. It is quite absurd to suppose that the English government and the government at Washington could have a question about half a million of money which they could not settle. I think the noble lord considers it a question of honor. But all questions of property are questions of law, and you go to a lawyer to settle them. I rest in the most perfect security that as the war in America draws to a close, if happily we shall become more generous to them, they will become less irritated against us; and when passions have cooled down, I don't see why Lord Russell and Mr. Seward should not be able to settle these matters between the two nations.

I have only one more observation to make. I apprehend that the root of all the unfortunate circumstances that have arisen