The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-30 00:00:00

the majority of the electors had returned Mr. Brown
—(Cheers.) In the contest of 1837 he had been at
an inn where there were sitting a number of persons
decorated with ribbons of the colour of the 'Whig
party—blue, that of Stanley and Townely. A shrewd
countryman, who was in the same room, observed that
at a future election they would wear other colours.—
(Hear, hear.) Since that time the proprietor of the
land upon which those independent electors were
tenants-at-will, had changed politics, and he (Mr.
Cobden) had seen the same men at a subsequent elec-
tion with the favours of the opposite party on their
coats.—(Cheers and laughter.) But, again, the pro-
perty was sold, and at the last election the same
tenants-at-will were again to be seen in their blue
favours.—(Cheers and laughter.) He had received
letters from Stockport explaining the manner in which
the influence of the landlord had been exercised in
that district, and in that of Ormskirk. As to the
district of Ormtkirk, it was a deception to say
that there had been any canvassing. There
had been no such thing. The steward went out and
intimated in what way he wished the tenants should vote.
He would therefore call on the meeting to bear this in
mind, that they had in this contest all the great land-
lords of the county against them, and that, in reality,
they had had a great moral triumph.—(Cheers.)
Whatever their opponents might say of the triumph
which they had gained in sending Mr. Entwisle to
Parliament, it could not be said that he went there
to represent the intelligence or the independence of
South Lancashire.—(Cheers.) The contest had been
productive of great advantage.—(Cheers.) It would
turn to good in the future.—(Cheers.) It showed
them what their strength was. It was like clearing
the decks.—(Great cheering.) It was a great moral
triumph ; in which men of all parties, merged their
party differences. Whigs, Tories, Radicals, and
Chartists, united in support of the free-trade candi-
, date.—(Cheers.) Now he would take the borough
of Oldham. He was there with Mr. Brown during
his canvass • and Oldham was a place entertaining,
as a borough, as extreme opinions on political ques-
tions as any borough in the kingdom. Mr. Brown
was there catechised by an individual who held these
opinions. lie did not, in any one point, come
up to the mark of their political faith ;
but at a crowded meeting held in the Town-hall of
the borough, he (Mr. Cobden) saw—what was cer-
tainly an unexampled thing in the history of elec-
tions—an unanimous vote passed to support a candi-
date on free trade principles, moved by a man who
himself professed Chartist opinions. He wished
he could say there had been equal unanimity on the
part of those who called themselves Tories and Con-
servatives in the district. But they (the League)
had made a breach in that party on this question,
which would never be healed—a breach which would
go on widening. Their efforts had drawn men out
of the slime of party—(Hear)—and had compelled
them to record their votes as free traders. The
gentleman who nominated Mr. Brown pro-
fessed himself a Conservative (Hear) many
polled for him irrespective of party considera-
tions. They had an immense number who could
have polled in that district, who stood aloof from
them merely to join them on some future occasion ;
and he believed that in less than two years from this
time, men of all parties in their manufacturing towns
of the north, except the lunatics of party—(Hear,
hear)—except those men to whom reason was denied
—with those exceptions, he believed all would be
found, within two years, taking up common ground
on this question ; and they would make short work
with the landlord monopolists, when they all came to
a good understanding of their own interests. They
had been defeated for want of union. There had been
men sprung from commerce and manufactures, men
who were recreants to their own order, and traitors
to the interest to which they were allied, who sallied
out of the towns, and joined in bringing in the serfs
of the agricultural districts, to swamp the honest
and independent votes of their neighbours.—(Hear,
hear.) He knew of nothing to compare to the con-
duct of these insane and suicidal politicians, unless
it was that displayed by some of the manufacturing
towns of the Low Countries during their feuds with
the aristocracy, when there were among the burgesses
individual cases of treachery in men who opened the
gates of their own towns, and spiked their own guns,
and brought in the common enemy to devastate their
streets and ruin their fellow citizens.—(Cheers.)
On one thing he would congratulate the meeting—
the importance attached by their opponents to this
test. They said that defeat in South Lancashire
would be death to the League. Let them bear that
in mind ; if they asserted that, they could not refuse
to admit that success in South Lancashire would be
death to monopoly.—(Cheers.) He was glad of the
importance attached to this great contest. It bore
him out in what he had said on the question of free
trade—that it would not be carried by a mere nume-
rical majority in the House of Commons. And now
they had a proof of it. They would not have to wait
till the pocket counties of Buckingham and Wiltshire
were converted ; but as soon as Middlesex, and Bris-
tol, and Hull, and Leeds were found side to side on
this question with Edinburgh and Glasgow, there was
no Prime Minister who would dare to maintain mo-
nopoly one hour longer after public opinion through
these formidable channels had been declared in favour
of commercial freedom.—(Cheers.) Their course
then was clear; they would leave Launceston, and
Aylesbury, and give up Hastings, if they pleased;
the contests there, and the nominations there, excited
no more interest among the monopolists than so
many squabbles in their servants' hall among
their own domestics. But they would have
to do with the large constituencies, and at the next
election they would return two free traders for Lan-
cashire, provided they would give them a couple of
registrations to enable them to effect their object.
They must arm themselves with this electoral weapon ;
they must enable themselves to vote in the electoral
booths ; every man must become a freeholder who
could afford to lay out 501. at 4 per cent. per annum,
in order to return a rental of 40s. This was the duty
of every man in South Laccashire and in the West
Riding of Yorkshire—to become a freeholder in order
to be entitled to vote at the county elections. By
that simple means they would have ample power to
repeal the corn-laws. Let them bear in mind that
their opponents would play the same game : they
had played the same game while the free traders had
been asleep. They had divided their farms, rented,
perhaps, at 2001. a-year, and compelled the tenants to
take in their brothers and sons as joint occupiers, in
order to have the advantage of their votes. The
landholders had done their worst ; the free traders
had done comparatively nothing.—(Cheers.) But
at the next revision of South Lancashire
in November, they would be placed in a clear
majority, above any their opponents could place on
the register ; and let them only give them another
registration before another election took place, and
they would make the number fourfold.—(Cheers.)
On this practical point let him urge their attention in
the metropolis; they had among them a Registration
Society which had been most diligent and systematic
in its operations in London. Its place of business was
at 68, Cheapside ; there they would find every advice
and aid, it would be attended with no expense, and by
applying to it they would learn all the law of regis-
tration and the practice of the Registration Courts,
and be put in a way of becoming electors, whether in
the boroughs or among the county constituency of
this important part of England. He was glad to
hear of the great progress made by the Society in
London. Their opponents felt that there was a rod
in pickle for them in the City of London.—(Cheers.)
They were aware that by a recent decision of the
Court of Common Pleas, lodgers paying 10/. a year
rent, if they liked, became qualified to vote. A vast
number of young men in London in houses
within the City or its other boroughs, paying 101.
a year for a floor or apartments, might have a
vote. These were the very mean who wished to aid
them in this cause, for those who had their way to
make in the world had no wish to see the avenues
stopped up by which they could attain to fortune.
Let them inquire by what means they could become
registered, let them omit no means by which they
could join in the battle for commercialfreedom. With
these practical remarks he need not that night go into
the question of free trade ; but he should not do
justice to their Chairman unless he expressed their
sense of their obligation to Earl Ducie for his attend-
ance there to-night.—(Great cheering.) He thanked
him for those valuable documents, of far more value
out of that assembly when printed—documents, ela-
borately correct and unquestionably:faithful—which he
had read to them ; he thanked him for his valuable
statements completely establishing their cause in that
ground where they were supposed to be most valuable,
proving that it was in the power of the fal•mer
of this country to compete with the foreigner in the
sale of grain at a good profit, with a perfect freedom
of trade in corn. There was one encouraging
fact which they should bear in mind': if they found an
agriculturist, whether a proprietor like Earl Ducie,
or Mr. Holland, or a tenant-farmer, like his friend,
Mr. Lattimore, who was then present, or Mr. Hunt,
who, he was afraid had not yet reached them • if they
were in favour of free trade, they would be found at
the same time to be men remarkable for their skill and
intelligence in agriculture. And by the way he
might remark, that if they went into the manufac-
turing districts, and found among the tall chimneys
men who were monopolists, the very reverse of that
rule applied. They would not find that those were
the men to whom a Government Commissioner, or a
traveller from abroad going into the manufac-
turing districts to make inquiries, would ever
think of applying for information, either
with respect to his own business, or on
the principles of social policy—they would not
find that these were the men elected to offices of trust
by their fellow townsmen. For the agriculturists
who were free-traders, he thanked them for their
support, and for the sacrifices they had made to -give
it—sacrifices to which Mr. Holland had alluded, of
that social comfort which men had seldom moral