In directing the attention of the masses to this all-important question he sought the aid of men who had sprung from the people and had been trained to commerce; and he found many able and truly earnest colleagues, but none more so than John Bright, a man of greater, though perhaps not more convincing eloquence than his own, who like himself had no object in view, as the whole experience of his life has proved, than the good of his country. While Cobden and Bright proclaimed, with overwhelming force, the policy of Charles James Fox, which Huskisson and Canning had first practically put in operation, and which Lord John Russell was now zealously pursuing in Parliament,[33] an Association, under their leadership, was being formed out of doors destined to give the fullest freedom to commerce. The first object of the Anti-Corn-Law League was to lower the price of bread, which with every deficient harvest approached a famine price, and thus enable the working classes of every grade to compete with greater prospects of success and to the best advantage, in the production of those articles most in demand in their own and other countries, and, at the same time, to secure them more steady employment and a higher rate of wages. With this object, its members set themselves heartily to work, proclaiming their views at public meetings in almost every city and town in Great Britain, and, in the course of their labours, making many converts to their policy among the higher classes, among whom Charles Villiers ought to take high rank, for he was unwearied in his exertions on behalf of the people. Nor did they lack some associates among even the shipowners of England, who, seeing that the free importation of corn from other countries would afford greatly increased employment for their ships, readily joined the league. It is certain, however, that many of this class did not at the time perceive that, though the immediate object of the association was to cut down the chief branch of the huge old tree of protection, other branches, such as those interfering with free navigation, must likewise be pulled down as the supplement to free importation of corn: probably they did not reflect that, should the Free-traders abolish the protection then afforded to the proprietors of land, a protective system for the maritime interest alone could no longer be maintained. [Sidenote: Effect of the Irish famine, 1845-6.]