Cobden thought that food-products should pass unobstructed to where they were needed, and that any other plan was mistaken and vicious. The question came up in the House of Commons, and Cobden arose to speak. Anyone who then spoke of "free trade" was considered disloyal to his country. Cobden used the word and was hissed. He waited and continued to speak. "Famine is possible only where trade is restricted," and he proved his proposition by appeals to history, and a wealth of economic information that hushed the House into respectful silence. As an economist he showed he was the peer of any man present. The majority disagreed with him, but his courteous manner won respect, and his resourceful knowledge made the opposition cautious. Soon after he brought up a public-school measure, and this was voted down on the assumption that education was a luxury, and parents who wanted their children educated should look after it themselves, just as they did the clothing and food of the child. At best, education should be left to the local parish, village or city government. Cobden was in the minority; but he went back to Manchester and formed the Anti-Corn-Law League, demanding that wheat and maize should be admitted to the United Kingdom free of duty, and that no tax of any kind should be placed on breadstuffs. The farmers raised a howl-- incited by politicians--and Cobden was challenged to go into farming communities and debate the question. The enemy hoped, and sincerely believed, he would be mobbed. But he accepted the challenge, and the debate took place, with the result that he was for the most part treated with respect, since he convinced his hearers that agriculture was something he knew more about than did the landlords. He showed farmers how to diversify crops and raise vegetables and fruits, and if grains would flow in cheaper than they could raise them, why then take the money they received from vegetables and buy grain! It was an uphill fight, but Cobden threw his soul into it, and knew that some day it would win. Cobden's contention was that all money necessary to run the Government should be raised by direct taxation on land, property and incomes, and not on food any more than on air, since both are necessary to actual existence. To place a tariff on necessities, keeping these things out of the country and out of the reach of the plain and poor people who needed them, was an inhumanity. A tariff should be placed on nothing but articles of actual luxury--things people can do without--but all necessities of life should flow by natural channels, unobstructed. An indirect tax is always an invitation to extravagance on the part of Government, and also, it is a temptation to favor certain lines of trade at the expense of others, and so is class legislation. Government must exist for all the people, never for the few, and the strong and powerful must consider the lowly and weak.