A.D. 1843.] MR. COBDEN CHARGED WITH ENCOURAGING ASSASSINATION.

answerable.

581

Mr. Villiers' motion was again brought forward on the 9th of May. The debate lasted for five nights, and ended in a division which, though it showed a majority of 256 against inquiry, was encouraging as evidencing an increase in the number of the free traders. The

his speech, he said, "I tell the right honourable gentle- deserving of condemnation. Sir Robert subsequently man (Sir Robert Peel) that I, for one, care nothing for so far recovered from his excitement as to say, "I will Whigs or Tories. I have said that I never will help to not overstate anything. Therefore I will not say I bring back the Whigs, but I tell him that the whole am certain the honourable gentleman used the word responsibility of the lamentable and dangerous state of personally; ' but the debate created a painful imthe country rests with him. It ill becomes him to throw pression, which was increased by an article in the that responsibility on any one on this side. I say there Times of the following day, deliberately attempting to never has been violence, tumult, or confusion, except at connect Mr. Cobden with the doctrine of assassination. periods when there has been an excessive want of employ- The friends of the Anti-Corn-Law movement, however, ment, and a scarcity of the necessaries of life." No immediately held meetings throughout the country outcry at these words, even among the Ministerial party, at which they expressed their indignation at the attempt evinced that the House regarded them as overstepping to fix a calumny upon the man, whose arguments in the proper limits of debate. Loud cries for Mr. Bankes, | favour of free trade in food were unanswered and unthe Dorsetshire landowner, who had been attacked in Mr. Cobden's speech, were the only party sounds uttered, but the Prime Minister was immediately seen to rise. It has been stated that he was "ill and harassed with public anxieties." He was certainly deeply moved by the loss of his valued and confidential friend Mr. Drummond. His countenance, it is said, indicated ex-minority numbered 125. The debate was chiefly treme agitation, while by gesticulations, and violently striking an empty box before him, he succeeded in obtaining the ear of the House. It was then that his audience perceived that the Minister regarded Mr. Cobden as pointing him out for the hand of the assassin. Sir Robert Peel began by saying, "Sir, the honourable gentleman has stated here very emphatically, what he has more than once stated at the Conferences of the Anti-Corn-Law League, that he holds me individually responsible for the distress and suffering of the country; that he holds me personally responsible." This was pronounced with great solemnity of manner, and at the word "individually" the Premier was interrupted by a loud cheer from the Ministerial benches of a very peculiar and emphatic kind. It lasted a considerable time, and while it continued, and for some time afterwards, the House presented an appearance of extreme excitement, the members in the gallery standing up, and many of those below whispering eagerly to each other. Sir Robert then continued, "Be the consequences of those insinuations what they may, never will I be influenced by menaces to adopt a course which I consider" But the rest of the sentence was lost in renewed shouts from the Ministerial benches.

remarkable for the violence of the monopolist party. Sir Robert Peel said that the subject was exhausted, and nothing new could be adduced. "The motion of Mr. Villiers was fairly stated and proposed-there was no subterfuge involved in it. But he thought that the principle must be applied generally and universally to every article on which a duty was levied. They could not stand on the single article of corn. By the adoption of the motion, they would sound the knell of protection, and they must immediately proceed to apply the principle to practice. This would at once upset the commercial arrangements of the last year. The whole of our colonial system must be swept away without favour and without consideration."

A contemporary writer describes the uproar which took place on this occasion as exceeding anything that had been witnessed since the night of the memorable division on the Corn Bill. "When the tempest was at its height, the leaders, Sir R. Peel and Lord J. Russell, left the house, and thus freed from all restraint, the belligerents became fiercer than ever. The blood of both parties was fairly up; for nearly two hours declamation roared while reason slept; and during the vociferous display, the voice of the Speaker was little more regarded than a whisper amidst a storm." The minority, it is said, were

Mr. Cobden immediately rose and said, "I did not say that I held the right honourable gentleman per-aware that the remaining speeches, even if delivered, sonally responsible; " but he was interrupted by shouts from the Ministerial benches of, "You did, you did!" mingled with cries of " "Order!" and "Chair!" The further remark from Mr. Cobden, "I have said that I hold the right honourable gentleman responsible by virtue of his office, as the whole context of what I said was sufficient to explain," brought renewed shouts from the same quarter of "No, no," accompanied by great confusion. When Sir Robert, says a newspaper of the day, gave the signal for this new light, then, and not till then, the sense so obtained burst forth with a frantic yell, which would better have befitted a company of savages who first saw and scented their victim, than a grave and dignified assembly insulted by conduct deemed

could not be reported, and for that and other reasons, were in their resolves so resolute, that although outvoted in some divisions, the question was just as often re-moved and seconded. At length Mr. Ross told Lord Dungannon, that if he were contented to sit till eight o'clock, he himself, and those who acted with him, would willingly sit till nine; and it was at this stage that Sir Charles Napier slyly suggested that they should divide themselves into three watches, after the fashion of a ship's crew. arrangement would afford case to all, excepting the Speaker, to whom he was sorry he could not afford the slightest relief. Worn out at length by the violence of their exertions, and despairing of victory, the majority yielded. On the whole, says this writer, the scene was

This

one of the most absurd, uproarious, and degrading to the dignity of the House that ever yet took place in Parliament. *

To the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers there was at least the consolation of finding that scarcely a speech was delivered by the Prime Minister which did not contain some distinct recognition of the great principles of political economy, showing how completely he had, in reality, embraced those doctrines. On one occasion he remarked, "We have reserved many articles from immediate reduction, in the hope that ere long we may attain that which we consider just and beneficial to all —namely, increased facilities for our exports in return. At the same time, I am bound to say that it is for our interest to buy cheap, whether other countries will buy cheap We have a right to exhaust all means to induce them to do justice; but if they persevere in refusing, the penalty is on us, if we do not buy in the cheapest market."

or no.

Several of the most conspicuous followers of Sir Robert Peel also in their speeches recognised the abstract principles of free trade in a way which was ominous for the continuance of the landlords' monopoly. Among the most interesting instances of this was that of Mr. Gladstone, the young statesman who was destined afterwards to play so great a part in carrying forward the reforms of his chief.

meetings were no less crowded and enthusiastic. Attempts were made to obstruct these meetings, but without success. The use of Drury Lane Theatre had soon to be relinquished, the Earl of Glengall and the committee of shareholders having prohibited Mr. Macready, the lessee, from letting it for political purposes. The League were, in like manner, refused admittance to Exeter Hall; but they were soon enabled to obtain the use of Covent Garden Theatre, where they quickly prepared for a series of great meetings, which proved to be no less crowded and enthusiastic. Their proceedings, with the speeches of Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Wilson, Colonel Thompson, and the other most important members of the League, were reported at great length in all the daily papers. A foreign traveller, Mr. J. G. Kohl, who visited England about this period, and was present at many of the proceedings of the League, gives, in his work entitled

Ireland, Scotland, and England," an interesting account of the movement, as it appeared to an enlightened observer, who had been brought up amidst the torpid political life and restricted liberty of a Continental state. "I could not help," he says, "asking myself whether in Germany men who attacked with such talent and energy the fundamental laws of the state, would not have been long ago shut up in some gloomy prison as conspirators and traitors, instead of being per

The Minister still claimed the character of the land-mitted to carry on their operations thus freely and boldly owner's friend; and in the House of Commons, out of 658 members, 125 was the utmost number that could be considered as free traders. But the progress of the League agitation this year was immense. Five years had elapsed since the Anti-Corn-Law Association in Manchester had put forth its humble appeal for fiveshilling subscriptions, and now in one single year £50,000 had been given for the objects of the association, and it was resolved to raise a further fund of £100,000. Mr. Bright had been returned for Durham in July, and already his manly and touching appeals for justice for the people had struck the ear of the House. Like his fellow-labourers, Mr. Cobden, Colonel Thompson, Mr. George Wilson, and others, he had been busy in all parts of England, addressing audiences sometimes of 10,000 persons. The League speakers had also visited Scotland, and had been everywhere received enthusiastically. The great Free Trade Hall in Manchester was finished, and had been the scene of numerous gatherings and free trade banquets, at which 7,000 or 8,000 persons had sat sometimes down together. The metropolis, however, was still behind the great provincial cities in supporting the movement; and the League, therefore, resolved on holding a series of great meetings in Drury Lane Theatre, which was engaged for one night a week during Lent. The first of these important meetings was held on the 15th of March, and was attended by so large a number of persons that the pit, boxes, and even the higher gallery were filled immediately upon the opening of the doors. The succeeding

Sun newspaper, May 13, 1843.

in the broad light of day; and, secondly, whether in Germany such men would ever have ventured to admit a stranger into all their secrets with such frank and open cordiality. I was astonished to observe how the Leaguers, all private persons, mostly merchants, manufacturers, and men of letters, conducted political business like statesmen and ministers. A talent for public business seems an innate faculty in the English. Whilst I was in the committee-room immense numbers of letters were brought in, opened, read, and answered, without a moment's delay. These letters, pouring in from all parts of the United Kingdom, were of the most various contents; some trivial, some important, but all connected with the objects of the party. Some brought news of the movements of eminent Leaguers or of their opponents, for the eye of the League is ever fixed upon the doings both of friend and enemy. Others contained pecuniary contributions from well-wishers of the cause, for each of whom the president immediately dictated an appropriate letter of thanks. Other letters related anecdotes, showing the progress of the cause, and the gradual defection of the farmers, the most resolute supporters of Peel. The League has now, by means of local associations in all parts of the kingdom, extended its operations and influence over the whole country, and attained an astonishing national importance. Its festivals, AntiCorn-Law bazaars, Anti-Corn-Law banquets, and others of like nature, appear like great national anniversaries. Besides he acknowledged members of the League, there are numbers of important men who work with them and for them in secret. Every person who contributes £30 to the League fund has a seat and a voice in their

A.D. 1843.]

land, the smallest party operations are carried on! Even in children's books do both the Leaguers and AntiLeaguers carry on their warfare, thus early sowing the seeds of party spirit in the minds of future generations. All the publications of the League are not only written, but printed, bound, and published at the League Rooms in Market Street, Manchester. I went through the various rooms where these operations were carried on until I came at last to the great League Depôt, where books, pamphlets, letters, newspapers, speeches, reports, tracts, and wafers, were all piled in neat packets of every possible size and appearance, like the packets of muslin and calico in the great warehouses of Manchester."

The conclusion of the remarks of this shrewd observer are equally interesting, as showing how little, with all this gigantic movement, the task of the League appeared near completion; and how far were the most sanguine observers from anticipating the events of the next three years. "I cannot," Mr. Kohl continues, "join the sanguine expectations of the Leaguers, that Sir Robert Peel will be the last English minister who will venture to uphold monopoly. It is well-known how long such struggles generally last, and how very frequently, when the longed-for prize appears on the point of being attained, it is suddenly snatched away from that oftdeluded Tantalus, the people. The immediate aim of the Leaguers is the abolition of the corn laws, but they do not propose to stop at the attainment of this object. They will then turn the same weapons which brought down the corn laws against all other trade monopolies and Custom House regulations, first in England and then in other countries, until at length all commercial restrictions between different nations shall be totally done away with, and trade rejoice in the golden sunshine of freedom all over the world. A tempting object, but alas! a long and doubtful road."

council. They have committees of working men for the more thorough dissemination of their doctrines among the lower classes, and committees of ladies to procure the co-operation of women. They have lecturers, who are perpetually traversing the country to fan the flames of agitation in the minds of the people. These lecturers often hold conferences and disputations with lecturers of the opposite party, and not unfrequently drive them in disgrace from the field. It is also the business of the travelling lecturers to keep a vigilant watch on every movement of the enemy, and acquaint the League with every circumstance likely to affect its interests. The Leaguers write direct letters to the Queen, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and other distinguished people, to whom, as well as to the foreign ambassadors, they send copies of those journals containing the most faithful accounts of their proceedings. Sometimes they send personal deputations to distinguished opponents, in order to tell them disagreeable truths to their faces. Nor do the Leaguers neglect the potent instrumentality of that hundred-armed Briareus, the Press. Not only do they spread their opinions through the medium of those journals favourable to them; they issue many periodicals of their own, which are exclusively devoted to the interests of the League. These contain, of course, full reports of all meetings, proceedings, and lectures against the corn laws; extracts from Anti-Corn-Law publications repeating for the thousandth time that monopoly is contrary to the order of Nature, and that the League seeks only to restore the just order of Providence; original articles headed, 'Signs of the Times,' AntiCorn-Law Agitation in London,' 'Progress of the Good Work,' &c. &c.; and last, not least, poems entitled, 'Lays of the League,' advocating in various ways the cause of free trade, and satirising their opponents generally with more lengthiness than wit. Nor does the Anti-Corn-Law party omit to avail itself of the agency of those cheap little pamphlets, called 'Tracts,' which are such favourite party weapons in England. With these tiny dissertations, seldom costing more than two-electoral packets of tracts, upwards of 300 persons, while pence or threepence, and generally written by some well-known Anti-Corn-Law leader, such as Cobden and Sturge, the League are perpetually attacking the public, as with a bombardment of small shot. I saw three or four dozen of such publications announced at the same time by one bookseller, Mr. Gadsby. Still tinier weapons, however, are the Anti-Corn-Law wafers, consisting of short mottoes, couplets, and aphorisms of every class, grave and gay, serious and satirical, witty and unmeaning; but all bearing on the one point of monopoly and free trade. These are sometimes taken from the Bible, sometimes from the works of celebrated writers and orators, sometimes from speeches and publications of the Leaguers themselves, and sometimes are produced by the inventive ingenuity of the editor. Eighteen sheets of these wafers are sold in a pretty cover for one shilling, and cach sheet contains forty mottoes. Astonishing, indeed, is the profuse expenditure of labour, ingenuity, wit, and talent, and likewise of stupidity, folly, and dulness, with which, in this wonderful Eng

In the report prepared by the League, it was stated that during a very considerable portion of the year there were employed in the printing, and making up of the

more than 500 other persons were employed in distributing them from house to house among the constituencies. To the Parliamentary electors alone of England and Scotland there had been distributed in this manner, of tracts and stamped publications, five millions. Besides these, there had been a large general distribution among the working classes and others, who are not electors, to the number of 3,600,000. In addition, 426,000 tracts had been stitched up with the monthly magazines and other periodicals, thus making altogether the whole number of tracts and stamped publications issued by the council during the year to amount to upwards of nine millions, or in weight more than one hundred tons. The distribution had been made in twenty-four counties, containing about 237,000 electors, and in 187 boroughs, containing 259,226 electors, making in boroughs and counties together the whole number of electors supplied 496,226. The labours of the lecturers employed during the year had been spread over fifty-nine counties in England, Wales, and Scotland, and they had delivered about 650

A.D. 1843.]

ACCESSIONS TO THE RANKS OF THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE.

lectures during the year. A large number of meetings had been held during the year in the cities and boroughs, which had been attended by deputations of members of the council, exclusive of the metropolis. One hundred and forty towns had been thus visited, many of them twice and three times; and the report further stated that such had been the feeling existing in all parts of the kingdom that there was scarcely a town which had not urged its claim to be visited by a deputation from the council of the League.

585

Among the noblemen openly supporting their cause were Lord Kinnaird, Earl Ducie, the Earl of Radnor, Lord Morpeth, and Earl Spencer.

In contrast to these facts, one nobleman, as stated in the League newspaper, turned the poor labourers on his estate to work on the roads, as a punishment for having admitted one of the League writers into their miserable hovels, and answered some of his questions about their condition, which was but too manifest in their ragged clothing, their furnitureless rooms, and their unthatched roofs which let in the rain.

But the League did more than attempt to convert the country party. They determined to create a country party of their own. They had already taken up the registration of voters in the boroughs, from which they proceeded, with that practical common sense which had distinguished nearly all their movements, to inquire into the position of the country constituencies, where hitherto the landowners had held undisputed sway. The scheme which resulted from this incursion into the dominions of the enemy was developed by Mr. Cobden at a meeting in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on the 24th of October, 1844. The Chandos clause in the Reform Act, giving the tenant-farmers votes for county members, had so strengthened the landlords' influence in the county that opposition at most of the county elections was hopeless. But Mr. Cobden showed his hearers that the counties were really more vulnerable than the small pocket boroughs. In many of these there was no increase from year to year in the number of voters-no

The Covent Garden meeting became thenceforth an annual feature in the political events of the metropolis, and the effects of this movement in the chief city of the kingdom were seen in the election of Mr. Pattison, the free trade candidate, for the city of London. Another sign of the times was the accession to the ranks of the Anti-Corn-Law League of Mr. Samuel Jones Lloyd, the wealthy banker, a conspicuous City man, and a great authority on financial matters. This gentleman addressed a letter to the council of the League in October, 1844, in which, after mentioning his reluctance to join a public body, for whose acts he could not be responsible, he said, "The time is now arrived when this must be overruled by other considerations of overwhelming importance. The great question of free trade is now fairly at issue, and the bold, manly, and effectual efforts which have been made by the League in its support command at once my admiration and my concurrence." Still more remarkable was the progress of the League in its scheme of converting the agriculturists themselves to their views. The truths which they had always maintained-extension of houses. The whole property belonged to that the tenant farmer had no real interest in maintaining the corn laws, the agricultural labourer, if possible, less, and that even the landed proprietor, on a far-seeing view of his interest, would be on the same side as themselves were based upon arguments easily understood by calm reasoners, and were even beginning to make way with these classes themselves. Not a few great landowners and noblemen had openly classed themselves among their supporters. Foremost among these was Earl Fitzwilliam, who was one of the most effective speakers at Anti-Corn-Law meetings by the side of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. The Marquis of Westminster, in sending a donation of £500 to the League fund on New Year's day, 1844, wrote a letter to the chairman, beginning

SIR,-Having on a former occasion expressed to you my anxious wishes for your success in the arduous contest with monopoly in which you are engaged, I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of congratulating you upon the rapid progress you have since made in the struggle with that formidable adversary. As you have found your foe to be daring and resolute, so have your energies increased in a wonderful manner; and, in spite of opposition, you have carried the war most effectually into the enemy's strongholds. With such vigorous and sustained efforts, the victory must be yours; and my hopes of ultimate triumph, and that at no very distant date, therefore, much exceed my fears of failure,"

a neighbouring noble, and as Mr. Cobden said, “You could no more touch the votes which he held through the property than you could touch the balance in his banker's hands." But the county constituency might be increased indefinitely, for there it required but a freehold property of the value of forty shillings a year to give a man a vote. This sum had been adopted from an ancient regulation, when money was of far greater value, and land of far less money worth than it was then; but the forty-shilling qualification existed, and was a powerful engine for the creation of voters. Up to that time it had had but little effect. The laws of England, but more especially the habits and prejudices of landowners, have always kept the land of the county in so few hands as to present an extraordinary contrast with the condition of things in all other nations of Europe. The danger of the fortyshilling clause to aristocratic influence in the county was not perceived, simply because forty-shilling freeholders were rare. But there was no reason why they should be rare. The passion for possessing freehold land is widely spread, and a few facilities offered for purchasing it would soon create a large number of small holders.

The chief difficulty in the way of this had hitherto been the great cost of transferring land. Owing to the complicated laws of real property, the land, unlike other articles, could only be bought and sold after a minute investigation into the owner's title, which