It is no matter of surprise that the corn-laws were obnoxious to such persons. With the agricultural interest they had no natural sympathy; and being always able to command the monopoly of the home market, their invariable effort has been to stimulate trade abroad to the very utmost of their power. High wages interfered with their profits; and in order to command the labour market, they formed their famous scheme for reducing the price of food, by dealing a blow to agriculture at home, and opening the ports to the admission of foreign corn. This cry was to a certain degree popular, especially amongst those who were not connected with their works; for the more intelligent of the operatives, to their credit be it said, very early detected the selfishness of the whole manœuvre, and saw, that with the price of food wages also would inevitably decline. Foreign corn, however, was not enough for the appetite of those grasping monopolists. They looked with envy on the smaller non-exporting trades, who constituted a great portion of the population, and who were defended in the home market, their only field, by a reasonable scale of duties. It presently occurred to them, that if, by any means this scale could be broken down, and the market inundated with foreign manufactures, they might be enabled to export a larger quantity of their own fabrics, reduce the price of articles which they were personally inclined to consume, and finally reap another benefit by cheapening labour—that is, by forcing a new class, through want of employment, to compete with their former operatives. These we know to have been the secret views of the League, and to these ends, for several years past, they have bent the whole of their energies. How they have succeeded, let the present state of the labour market tell. The tariffs of 1846 were expressly framed in their favour. They have done half of the anticipated work; for by the admission of foreign manufactures into this country at a reduced rate of duty, they have thrown many thousands of industrious handicraftsmen into the streets. The small shopkeeper has been reduced from an employer into a mere retailer, and disaffection has been engendered through the pressure of absolute misery.