text:  In illustration of what we say one (and very much the most searching) of Mr Cobden's questions to the farmers was this--"Was not the object " he demanded "was not the very purpose of all corn-laws alike--simply to keep up the price of grain? Well; had the English corn-laws accomplished that object? Had they succeeded in that purpose? Notoriously they had not; confessedly they had failed; and every farmer in the corn districts would avouch that often he had been brought to the brink of ruin by prices ruinously low