When the Jews had obtained their relief, Sir Julian Goldsmid, a Jew, became a candidate at Brighton. Mr. Matthews, a political friend of mine in the town, went to Sir Julian and asked whether, as Mr. Holyoake and those of his way of thinking had deferred their claim for affirmation that the Jews might become eligible for Parliament, would he vote for the Affirmation Bill? He said, "No! he would not" Mr. Matthews then wrote to ask me whether he and others who were in favour of Affirmation should vote for Sir Julian. I answered, "Certainly, if he in other respects was the best candidate before the constituency. However strongly we might be persuaded our own claim was just, we had no right to prefer it to the general interest of the State." Speaking one night with Mr. John Morley when we both happened to be guests of Mr. Chamberlain at Highbury, Birmingham, I remarked that Cobden and Bright, without intending it, had introduced more immorality into politics than any other politicians in my time. Mr. Morley naturally demanded to be informed when, and in what way. I answered, "When they advised electors to vote for any candidate, irrespective of their political opinion, who would vote against the Corn Laws. This incited every party to vote for its own hand--the priest for the church, the brewers for the barrel, and the teetotalers for the teapot, the anti-vaccinators for those who were against the lancet. Even women proposed to vote for any candidate who would give them the suffrage, regardless whether they put out a Ministry of Progress and put in a Ministry of Reaction. This was ignoring the general good in favour of a personal measure. The error of the great Anti-Corn Law advocates lay in their not making it plain to the country that when the population were deteriorating and dying from want of sufficient food, politics must give way to the claims of existence. That was the justification of Cobden and Bright, and had it been stated, smaller politicians with narrower aims could never then have pleaded their example for crowding the poll with rival claims in which the larger interests of the State are forgotten. Like Bacon's maxim that 'speaking the truth was so excellent a habit, that any departure from that wholesome rule should be noted.' The Anti-Corn Law League election policy needed noting."