The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-25 00:00:00

try to indnce you, first of all, every man to get a
borough vote, and then to get as many county votes
as you can in addition; and, next of all, to urge
upon those who have not got a borough vote, to see
and get a county vote as soon as they can.—(Cheers.)
Don't let us talk about theories for getting the fran-
chise in some great 3 weep, which can be obtained
some day, I don't know when ; but let us do some-
thing as well as talk ; let everybody who can manage
to get a vote for the county, get it as soon as he
can, and it will help him to get everything else
right and just that he wants to get.--(Applause.)
A little while ago there was an election for North
Lancashire. Well, Mr. Towneley Parker, a leading
man among the squires—not a very wise man you
suppose—it does not require a very wise man to lead
that order—(Applause and laughter)—in addressing
the constituency at one of the towns, said, "I should
like to see any one come forward here to oppose Mr.
Talbot Clifton. Loek at the requisition that has been
presented to him! it is signed by people whose in-
come amounts to 400,0001. a year, and A. should like
to know who would contend against such an amount
of influence as that." Nothing so easy as to contend
against it ; and I'll show you how ; 400,0001. a year ;
how many votes will that give the landowners—for
that is what he meant ?—(Hear, hear.) We know
that 50/. a year gives a vote; a rent of 50/. gives a
rote to the tenant, and that vote the landlord puts
in his pocket along with the rent.—(Applause.) But
farms are not divided now into 501. each ; it is not
convenient to do so. Mr. Towneley Parker's father
finds it necessary to make up his land into farms of
400 or 500 acres, and to get Scotchmen with money to
manage them, in order that he may get his rent.
Now, I'll suppose that they have this 400,0001.
a year let in farms of 1001. a year each, and that they
had their 4,000 tenants-at-will; and we'll suppose
that they command the votes of all of them. This
400,0001. a year of landed property represents a
capital at thirty years' purchase (which land is worth)
of twelve millions. Twelve millions of money, pay-
ing 400,0001. a year of rent, let to 4,000 tenants-at -
will at 1001. a year, gives 4,000 votes. Now let us
see how many votes may be owned in the towns in
North Lancashire—Blackburn, Lancaster, Preston,
Citheroe, and'athe rest, and what will they cost ? Why
4,000 votes at 50/, each, of capital, mind you (for
you may buy a vote, I mean the property that will
give you a vote, quite easily)-4,000 people might
qualify themselves at 501. each of capital, which
would be 200,0001. Thus, the mere investment of
200,0001. in cottage property in any town in North
Lancashire would just give the same power to the
owners of that property in the polling-booths as Mr.
Townley Parker and his brother squires get,by invest-
ing their twelve millions in the land.—(Applause.) Well
now, if these squires will come out, and swagger, and
point to their requisition, and say, " See what an
amount of interest it represents, how can you stand
against such an amount of influence as this ?"—I say,
" Town against county—plain pantaloons against
top-boots and breeches, if you will."—(Loud ap-
plause and laughter.) And I have no doubt, if we
can only raise our fellow-countrymen to that feeling
of self-respect which I long to see within them, that
that the towns are better prepared now to make a
fight in this constitutional and peaceful way, against
the squirearchy, who are attempting to retain a por-
tion of that old feudal barbarism which is exploded
in every country in the world—money for money in
the polling-booth—than ever our ancestors were when
they knocked them out of those old castles of theirs,
and brought their houses about their ears.—(Loud
applause.) We have tried what can be done in South
Lancashire, and don't suppose, because we happen to
have so many large towns in South Lancashire, that
therefore we fight those landed monopolists at so much
greater advantage than the free-traders would have
in some other counties. For it does so happen, that
in Lancashire and Cheshire there is a greater num-
ber of large proprietors exercising a predomi-
nant sway in the counties than in any other part of
the kingdom. That is acknowledged and understood
everywhere. If you ask in London where the largest,
and richest, and most powerful landed proprietors are
to be found, they'll tell you in North Cheshire and in
Lancashire, where you'll find your Lord Derbys,
with their estates of eleven miles long ; your Scarris-
' brick, where you may ride ten or twelve miles at a
stretch over his property ; and your Egerton, of Tat-
ton, with a similar extent of domain—the largest and
most powerful proprietors in the country.—(Ap-
plause.) And it is against them that we have had to
contend in Lancashire, and to contend, too, mind
you, before we had even thought of putting into
force the plan we are now recommending, of bring-
ing up all the free-traders to be put on the register,
by inducing them to qualify for this holy war against
monopoly. Well, in South Lancashire, under all
these disadvantages, we have tried our strength
against the monopolists ; and you know the result.—
(Applause.) And it has not been long in doing
either. Thanks to our friend Mr. Brown—(Applause)
—for having come forward to fight a forlorn hope;
for I, having been behind the scenes, can tell you
that neither Mr. Brown, nor some other people who
must be nameless, had the least idea that we could
win last time. I don't know whether, when I was
here, I told you any fibs, and said that we should;
but you know in electioneering, as in love, you. may
say anything.—(Applause and laughter.) But Mr.
Brown knew he had no chance of winning last time;
nevertheless, he threw himself nobly into the battle ;
he very admirably managed his canvass, and showed
the utmost munificence in maintaining his share of
the expenses of the contest.—(Applause.) He knew
he could not win ; but I think he has a shrewd guess
now that he'll win next time.—(Loud applause.)
Well, we tried our strength in South Lancashire
and I'll tell you what happened. Every landed pro-
prietor of any magnitude, Whig or Tory, with the
exception—and a splendid exception it was—of Lord
Sefton, went dead against us.—(Hear, hear.) There
was one gentleman down at Liverpool, or the neigh-
bourhood, a Catholic, who had been so staunch a
Liberal in times when the only test we put to
people was " Civil and religious liberty all over
the world," that he used to come into Liver-
pool and take the chair for the Liberals at
Lord Molineux's Committee.—(Hear, hear.) At the
last election they went to him naturally, and asked
him to do so again. The answer got was, " This is
quite another question now : this is not civil and reli-
gious liberty ; ' and they learnt, in short, that the
gentleman had turned corn-servative.—(Applause and
laughter.) Yes, and a good many more turned corn-
servatives too.—(Hear.) 1 was in the polling-booth,
at which I saw a gentleman there who used to be a
flaming patriot of the " civil and Veligious liberty"
school n22t more than eight years ago, and who took
the chair at our committees for Lord Molineux and
Mr. Wood, in Manchester. He came to the poll and
he said—" Mr. Entwisle, I vote against the League—
that's all."—(Laughter.) Now, that was a shabby
fellow.—(Loud applause and laughter.) I'll tell you
why ; because he had not the courage to say, like
other men, " lam a corn-servative," but he tried to
escape by picking a quarrel with the League.—(Ap-
plause.) All shabby men do that.—(Loud applause.)
If a man wants an excuse for doing what he knows is
wrong, he picks a quarrel with the League, and says
—" lam against the League."—(Hear.) Now, this
squire voted for Entwisle because he thought it suited
his pocket to vote for Entwisle ; and he is not only a
shabby man, but a profoundly ignorant one; he did
not know his own true interest, or he would have
voted for Brown.—(Applause.) That was the people
we had opposed to us at the last election ; they all
went over. And we had the traitors at our own door
too, men of our own order—men who, as Mr. Bright
says, opened the gates of the citadel by night, as it
were, and let the enemy in.—(Applause.) We had
then all against us. And now I will tell you what
we can do ; we can put our foot, the foot of the Anti-
Corn-law League, upon the neck of every one of them.
—(Loud applause.) Aye, we will say so to the
proudest of the aristocrats amongst them who uphold
this iniquitous system of corn-laws—" At the next
election we will prove that you, by identifying your-
selves with this vile system, you, with your ten or
twelve miles' extent of territory, have so forfeited the
respect of those around you, that, devoted as the
English people hereditarily are to rank and wealth,
you have so alienated the respect and confidence of
the great bulk of the propertied class—the middle
class—round you, that you have no more poli-
tical power in the country than so many paupers
in a union workhouse."—(Hear, and loud cheers.)
Now, what has been done in South Lancashire—
done, as it were, in a canter—is nothing to what we
will do in futures They talk of recovering their lost
ground next year : I tell them, for their consolation,
bad as they are upon this registry, they will be a
thousand times worse upon the next.—(Applause.)
But this good system won't stop in Lancashire :
already in the West Riding of Yorkshire they have
caught the contagion, and they are meeting in every
town and large village in the West Riding. I have
no hesitation in saying, that North Cheshire will be
as easily won as South Lancashire ; there are only
5,000 or so upon the registry there; not one-half of
the people who are subscribers to the League and free-
traders in that county are upon the register. And
why should not we, in Manchester, and Oldham, and
Rochdale, send our contingent of free-traders across
the Mersey to help them out of their trouble there ?
—(Applause.) North Cheshire, the West Riding of
Yorkshire, and North Lancashire, must be the next
counties to follow the example of South Lancashire.
1 hen there's Middlesex ; I did not think the Cock-
neys would be easily moved, but I hear they are
catching the infection in London ; they are proposing
to add 500 or 1,000 fresh voters for the county of
Middlesex before the 31st of January.—(Applause.)
Now, it is a shame that there should be any doubt
about the representation of that county. If the people
of London had only a notion how easily they could
qualify, and how they are wanted to qualify, they
would have ten times the strength necessary to secure
the county of Middlesex to the free-traders ; and I
doubt not it will be effectually done. Now, we shall