hs,--if they be pitiless infernal gods! Celestial gods, I
think, would stop short of the famine-price; but no infernal nor any
kind of god can be bidden stop!----Infatuated mortals, into what
questions are you driving every thinking man in England?

I say, you did _not_ make the Land of England; and, by the possession
of it, you _are_ bound to furnish guidance and governance to England!
That is the law of your position on this God's-Earth; an everlasting
act of Heaven's Parliament, not repealable in St. Stephen's or
elsewhere! True government and guidance; not no-government and
Laissez-faire; how much less, _mis_-government and Corn-Law! There is
not an imprisoned Worker looking out from these Bastilles but appeals,
very audibly in Heaven's High Courts, against you, and me, and
everyone who is not imprisoned, "Why am I here?" His appeal is audible
in Heaven; and will become audible enough on Earth too, if it remain
unheeded here. His appeal is against you, foremost of all; you stand
in the front-rank of the accused; you, by the very place you hold,
have first of all to answer him and Heaven!

* * * * *

What looks maddest, miserablest in these mad and miserable Corn-Laws
is independent altogether of their 'effect on wages,' their effect on
'increase of trade,' or any other such effect: it is the continual
maddening proof they protrude into the faces of all men, that our
Governing Class, called by God and Nature and the inflexible law of
Fact, either to do something towards governing, or to die and be
abolished,--have not yet learned even to sit still and do no mischief!
For no Anti-Corn-Law League yet asks more of them than this;--Nature
and Fact, very imperatively, asking so much more of them.
Anti-Corn-Law League asks not, Do something; but, Cease your
destructive misdoing, Do ye nothing!

Nature's message will have itself obeyed: messages of mere Free-Trade,
Anti-Corn-Law League and Laissez-faire, will then need small
obeying!--Ye fools, in name of Heaven, work, work, at the Ark of
Deliverance for yourselves and us, while hours are still granted you!
No: instead of working at the Ark, they say, "We cannot get our hands
kept rightly warm;" and _sit obstinately burning the planks_. No
madder spectacle at present exhibits itself under this Sun.

The Working Aristocracy; Mill-owners, Manufacturers, Commanders of
Working Men: alas, against them also much shall be brought in
accusation;