The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-23 00:00:00

convenient to do go. Mr. Towneley Parker's father

finds it necessary to make up his hind 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, andlthe 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 200,000/. Thus, the mere investment of
200,000/. 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
hey 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 atso 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 new 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 hare 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 thne.—(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.) I was in the polling-booth,
at which I saw a gentleman there who used to be a
flaming patriot of the " civil and religious liberty"
school not more than eight years ago, and who took
the chair at our committees for Lord Molineux and
Mr. Wood, in Manchester. lie 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, " I am 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 pockit 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