Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/72

 claim to be ''heard. There was the greatest assembly that could be brought together under one roof in the great metropolis of the world, ready to hear''. My curiosity was roused, almost painfully roused, to ascertain in what spirit and with what intelligence they heard; whether the excitement that might arise was from argument and a sense of justice, or merely from the gratification to the car from impassioned oratory.

The first speaker introduced by the chairman was Mr. James Wilson. I knew that he was closely argumentative, relying more upon statistical figures than on figures of speech, and trusting more to facts and reasonings than to rhetorical flourishes. He was just the man to test the previously acquired knowledge of the audience. If they listened with interest to plain statements, and appreciated a plainly-put point, then they had come to learn and not to be excited by flashes of oratory. And so it proved. They not only listened with deep interest to an address which lasted three quarters of an hour, but repeatedly applauded with enthusiasm when a telling argument was uttered. In his plain business-like way, Mr. Wilson demolished Lord Monteagle's fallacy about a fixed duty of 5s. being paid, not by the British consumer, but by the foreign grower of wheat, and went on with a number of statistical proofs of the injury inflicted by "protection," not only without wcarying his audience, but manifestly to their high gratification. A memorial had appeared in the early part of the week, in which the great merchants, bankers, and traders of London had prayed that an efficient system of colonization might be established. I was afraid that the London people might be drawn from the real chase to the false trail; but the portion of them before me soon showed that they were not thus to be deceived, for the moment Mr. Wilson distantly alluded to a wholesale emigration, there was an intense burst of indignant feeling. In short, I was convinced that it was not mere excitement that was