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

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 80, 1844.

I will now give the returns on another farm, on the
Cotswold Hills, on the two years old :
Two years' rent at 17s. per acre ; two years'
rates—poor, church, and road, at 3s. per
acre

.£2 0 0

Ploughing, harrowing, and drilling
Seed, 2} bushels, at 7s. 6d. 0 18 9
Bird-keeping and hoeing 0 5 0
Reapinf and harvesting
Threshing, trimming, and taking out, at Bd.
per bushel, 20 bushels on the average
Wear and tear

5 13 1
Deduct straw, at value to consume at home 1 5 0

£4 6 1

Say. 4/. 108., or per bushel 4s. 6d. The capital in-
vested in the land of this quality does not exceed, if
it comes up to 81. per acre. Every sd. in price of
excess over the sum of 4s. 6d. is a fraction above

not the same power of choice as those who were
iving in a large city.—(Hear, hear.) Now, how-
ever, they could go into the market and speak
to the farmers on the subject of free
trade without being asked whether they meant to
ruin the country.—(Hear, hear.) The farmer said
" I see with you that it is impossible for us to oppose
this question much longer; although we may not
agree with you, yet we feel that before long we must
yield to our free-trade opponents." But these are
the worst sort of farmers—(Hear, hear)—these are
the farmers of the old school.—(Hear, hear.) If they
were dissected it would be found that they had a
grumbling apparatus constructed in their stomachs.
—(Laughter.) Such grumbling might naturally be
expected from men who depended so much upon
Aimate, instead of depending, like the inhabitants of
large towns and cities, entirely upon their own skill
and handicraft. The farmer must be excused if now
and then he grumbled more than others, seeing that
he was so much at the mercy of the elements.—
(Hear, hear.) But they felt that they had made way
both in argument and feeling. Through the esta-
blishment of protective societies the farmers had been
taught to think ; and not only had they learned to
think, but to act for themselves. Living amongst
farmers, as he did, he really believed that
since the existence of protective societies,
through their becoming so rife, they had gained
converts amongst the agriculturists of Worcester-
shire.—(Cheers.) The exertions which were made
in populous towns, and especially in this great metro-
Dulls, cheered the heart; of those who were working
in the country, and aided them to a degree which
they could not imagine without residing for a time
amongst them. He recollected going over a museum,
and seeing, amongst other things exhibited, a short
spear. It was strong, and stiff, and sharp at the
uoint ; and about two feet from the point was a cross
bar. On asking what it was, he was told that it was
Norwegian spear, for killing bears. "It saves a
great deal of trouble, said the man ; " the bear, im-
mediately he is pricked by the point of the spear, em-
braces the bar with his arms, presses the spear home,
and kills himself." " This," thought he to himself,
" is exactly what the agriculturist does."—(Great
laughter.) The sharp point was the corn-law : the
cross-bar was the bar of protection. The farmer,
eeling pricked by the corn-law, embraced the bar of
orotection.—(Hear.) He hoped, however, that those
who felt so bitterly towards them—those who were
embracing this cross-bar of protection—were now
diminishing in number, and if he were permitted to
address them again he trusted that he would have to
address protectionists and anti-protectionists all united
in one body and all enjoying the benefits of free-
trade.—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. COBDEN then came forward, and was received
Nith tremendous cheers, which lasted two or three
.ninutes. After the applause had in some measure
subsided, he said that if he had returned from South
Lancashire, where he had been doing his duty as a
freeholder of that important county, and had come
iecked with laurels, they could not have bestowed
apon him a more favourable reception.—(Loud
sheers.) It was a proof, at all events, that they did
iot desert their friends in what their enemies called
the hour of adversity. But he came there not to
talk of misfortunes, of losses, or defeats; he came
there to claim for them a great moral triumph as free
traders. They had been out-nosed, it was true; but
ie would count noses with them, and see what they
were made of. They had not lost a man for South
Lancashire ; they had only failed in getting one.
rheir late amiable representative, who had been so
suddenly and in such an untimely manner snatched
from them, was opposed to them upon principle.—
(Hear, hear.) They were hurried into the contest
in South Lancashire more unexpectedly and sud-
lenly,and were altogether unprepared for it. Let them
:ook to how the contest stood at present and how it
stood when their late worthy respresentative—for he
was a most amiable and excellent man in private life—
was elected for South Lancashire. The last contest
vas in 1837, and was between two Tories on the one
side, and two Whigs on the other. Lord Egerton
was then at the head of the poll, with a majority of
1,200. In 1841, when the last general election took
place, the leading friends of the Reform party looked
nto the registry and found that they would be in a
ninority of two thousand, and they left the field to
;heir adversaries. At that time the friends of free

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 Ormskirk, it was a deception to say
that there had been any canvassing. There
had been no such thing. The steward weot 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. He 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
himselfs 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.) lie 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 Lancashire 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 101. 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 men 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 unquestionablyfaithful—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 farmer
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
ahvce,tie.rrfieacfneefsdlrl
free-traders,
rt:tt oahhdiewce•hrsnsas,c:rihierfien.
c.
ietisholtalhnloaekrnyeddthhahetdha
had
made
agriculturists
the principles of social policy—they would not
find that. these were the men elected to offices of trust
dfeo
alluded,rto t
giveheoi rf
social comfort which men had seldom moral
tib‘tsi
support,—ha tost

5 per cent. on the capital invested, say 5 per cent.
Suppose the price of wheat to be ss. 6d. per bushel,
or 445. per quarter (which is 3s. per quarter under
the average price in the Channel Islands for the last
seven years), it gives 11 per cent. on the invested
capital. Take the present price of wheat at 7s. per
bushel, or 565. per quarter, it gives a return
of 271 per cent. on the capital of 81. in-
vested. Or supposing that this farm is cul-
tivated on the five course system, this gives 5i
per cent. on the whole capital on the whole farm.
I was anxious to endeavour to show that in that low
quality of land which it was said would be thrown
out of cultivation if the corn-laws were repealed,
there was a return of 27i per cent. even when the
price of corn was only 445. a quarter, which was the
lowest price at which it was ever calculated it could
be sold in this country.—(Cheers.) I hope and trust
that this will set the mind of every man at rest on the
point, who has ever believed that a free trade in corn
would throw land out of cultivation, and that he will
believe with me that nothing can ever -cause any land
to be thrown out of cultivation in England so long as
the manufacturers are able to undersell the manufac-
turers of the Continent in the world's markets.—(The
Noble Lord sat down amidst loud cheers.)
Colonel P. THOMPSON then came forward to ad-
dress the meeting, and was received amidst loud
cheers. He said he was sent to address them at a
moment when he had not to speak to them on a sub-
ject of success, but came under the shadow of some-
thing like temporary misfortune.—(A laugh.) Did
either they or he come there under the notion
that misfortune would fly over their heads harmless?
Need he, seeing how necessary it was in a case like
theirs, that all temporary evils should be turned to
that use for which they were intended—to sharpen
their minds to be the instruments of greater good?—
(Cheers.) A post, they were told, had been driven
in in South Lancashire. Well that was not every
where nor every thing.—(Cheers.) He would beg
of them to wait till it had been driven back again.—
(Cheers.) Why, if evils like that were to settle the
dispute, the trade of war would be no where. Why,
if they were to give over at the first symptom of for-
tune failing them, fortune would be only a long mis-
fortune for the best.—(Cheers.) They knew when
they came there they were to witness many such turns
of fortune before they left to their children the fair
enjoyment of that inheritance which they would and
should leave them.—(Cheers.) Was there any fear
that a country, whose metropolis could pour forth
its thousands, week after week, in support of the po-
pular cause, could ever fail. Now, if there was any
one there of the adverse party, he would warn him
not to talk too loudly on the subject.—(Laughter.)
They might just as well think of driving back the
Anti-Slavery Society, and putting an end
to the great work of philanthropy they
hat achieved, as that they and their cause
should quail before such enemies as they had.—
(Cheers.) They knew their- enemies, and their
strength also. They could calculate and estimate the
value of those who were for the country, and those
who were against it. Go to the Prince 'de Joinville,
and tell him that England needed not his puny inter-
ference.—(Loud cheers.) They had a domestic
enemy, an inbred foe, who could do his work much bet-
ter. They those among them, who had unhappily
the power to !-ell them that British commerce, which
might have raged them almost above all fear of human
ills, which might have waved their flag, not in sangui-
nary triumph, hut in peaceful rivalry all over the
world, with scarcely a competitor, should be
crippled and limited to what the interests
of their side-pockets dictated.--(Laughter and
cheers.) Men in office—men decked with
power—had plainly told them, and would
doubtless tell them again, that it was to make their
daughters' portions that they robbed them.----(Hear,
hear.) Did Englishmen want telling that more than
once ? Was not one such statement sufficient to
rouse the heart of every father there into fierce oppo-
sition to this horrible injustice ?—(Hear, hear.) Why
these men would live on anything. There was no
garbage which they would not make their profit of.—
(Laugher.) There was no trade so low, no calling
so base, that these men would not stand by with their
toll-dish to take the proceeds.—(Cheers.) Yet they
looked down upon humble citizens; commercial men
and tradesmen, in their estimation, were hardly worth
a thought. Hei thought that meeting knew that an
honest conscience was far more valuable than any
rank which the world could give.—(Cheers.) The
certainty that sueh a cause as theirs had always
prospered and always would prosper would be their
sheet-anchor, and they would hang on by it till the
day of success should arrive.—(Cheers.) England,
great and glorious England, as she might have been,
and as, in some ages of her history, she had been,
would not see herself trammelled and confined to
suit the interests of these bad men.—(Cheers.)
It was well, perhaps, he did not use a harsher
epithet. But he would not truckle to them. They
should hear from him no compliments upon their
hospitality.—(Laughter.) " Light come, light go,"
was a proverb which they had heard of before that
evening. They knew of men who were as much
given to hospitality, when it suited their purpose, as
any other class in the country. Thieves were hospi-
table—(Laughter)—they took all they could, and
they gave freely to their comrades—(Laughter.) The
members of the Anti-Corn-law League were not to
be deluded, by such pretexts, into allowing the pros-
pects of their children and their families to be scat-
tered to the winds, because, from every shilling of
which they were mulcted, sixpence might, perhaps,
be returned in hospitality.—(Cheers.) There was
the "rub." They could not stop the man who simply
picked their pockets of a shilling and spent it at the
wrong shop.—(Laughter.) If they could prove of
him that he took the shilling, leaving only sixpence
for themselves, there would be some chance. That
chance was now before them, and when that was
settled, they would see the end. Now he (Colonel
Thompson) had been put forward with a stipulation,
which was not, in general, needful with him, that
he should not detain them long.—(Cheers.) One
word more, however, he wished to say—(Cheers)—
and it was a word which was, prompted by the place
in which they were assembled. He had heard that a
well-known favourite of theirs (Miss P. Horton),
whose name should be received with all the respect
due to an individual so eminent in her profession, was
singing the " Song of a Shirt."—(Laughter.) Now
could not all those who wore shirts, and he was sure
there were none there without that garment—could
not all those who went to increase her benefit, instead
of encoring the lady, which might be troublesome to
her after the exertions of so long a ditty, give some-
' thing like three cheers for the Anti-Corn-law
League P—(Laughter). Would not that be a fair use
to make of the theatre, which in their- partially free
country had been (and he trusted always would be)
under the direction of persons who made it the means
of promoting national freedom and morality, and not
of injuring and depressing society at lair ? If they
admitted that his allusion to this subject had been
warranted by the occasion, let them bear it in mind.
Mr. E. HOLLAND, of Dumbleton, Worcestershire,
said that was the first time, since the commencement
of the meetings of the Anti-Corn-law League in that
theatre, that he had had the pleasure-of taking part in
its proceedings. But having read the proceedings in
the reports, he had. constantly remarked that those
speakers who did not come forward most frequently,
were continually in the habit of commencing their
speeches by stating that they hid been called upon
unexpectedly.—(Hear, hear.) He could assure them
that he was in that position. Five minutes before he
entered that theatre he was not aware that he should
be a stage horse. However, any man who had his
heart and soul in a cause like that—a cause which he
believed to be highly beneficial, nay, essential to
their very existence as a nation, would be constantly
ready to express his feelings in relation to it when•
ever lie might see his fellow-countrymen assembled.
—(Cheers.) They would not, on that occasion, ex-
pect anything from him in the shape of argument.
Arguments and facts coming from any speaker
in the position which he then occupied, should
be spoken with much care and much thought. It was
essential that they should be carefully considered pre-
viously to their being brought before the public.
Their opponents were ready to catch at the least over-
sight; all figures were scrutinised by them; all
matters of detail sifted in the most searching manner.
He would, therefore, by the indulgence of the meet-
simply state to them on that occasion, as an eye
witness fresh from the country, and one who, as re-
garded one portion of it at least, was well acquainted
with the working of the cause, that as far as his own
part of the country was concerned, the cause of free
trade was rapidly advancing.—(Cheers.) At first,
country gentlemen, who espoused the cause of the
League, were met by the greatest difficulties.—
(ilear, hear.) Sour faces, eyes askant, the loss of
friends, distance of manner, and many of those un-
pleasant forms of demeanour, were the result of the
course which they pursued. It should be recollected
that those who lived in the country were obliged to
take their neighbours as their companions. They had

trade were in ignorance of their strength. But in the
late election they had separated the wheat from the
chaff.—(Cheers.) They had had a candidate who had
no connexion with the county. He had stood for-
ward only as the advocate of the total abolition of
core-laws, and every restriction upon commerce.
He stood this conflict against all the influence of the
landowners, with the splendid exception of Lord
Sefton, who gave to the advocates of free trade all
the assistance in his power.—(lmmense cheering.)
the result was, that the friends of free trade polled
3,974—(Cheers)--of the freeholders of South Lan-
cashire —(Renewed cheering)—which was 400 more
than had polled for the two IVhig candidates in 1837.
—(Cheers.) They had thus 6,974 of the voters of
South Lancashire p!edged to the total and immediate
repeal of the corn-laws.—(lmmense cheering.) They
had been told before, that the election would be no
fair trial of the strength of the agricultural interest.
But let them listen to what that veracious authority
the Standard said upon the subject.—(Cheers and
laughter.) " The South Lancashire election has ter-
minated by the return of the Conservative candidates
with a majority of nearly 600; the whole number of
electors polled being 14,458. The result of the
South Lancashire contest is, on many accounts, de-
serving of observation. An election at which be-
tween 14,000 and 15,000 electors polled must be, of
course, free from suspicion of any external influence,l
whether of the Government or the aristocracy ; and
an election in a district almost as densely peopled as a
great city, must be equally free from the suspicion of
any local territorial influence."—(Great laughter.)
Now, let them see how far territorial influence was
out of the question in this case. There was the
Earl of Derby, Sir T. Jerrold, Mr. Scaresbrook, and
)they proprietors.—(Hear, hear.) But the Standard
went on to say that " The not very extensive district
aow represented by the Conservative Mr. Entwisle
and the Conservative Lord Francis Egerton, must
amount to considerably more than half a million, and
it includes the important towns of Manchester and
Liverpool (towns larger and immeasurably richer
than many capital cities, Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale,
Bury, &c. Whatever, influence, then, it is possible to
imagine to be exercised in a South Lancashire
tion, must be a mercantile and manufacturing influence,
and indeed of this influence the part of the League
have been very profusely boasting for the last year
or two. We know not whether all our readers will
recollect, some certainly must, that the journals of
the League have recently set down South Lancashire
as a assigning, among the other
grounds
confidence, the reduction, by no less
sure
of conquest,
their
than 2,800 votes, of the Conservative iorce, which
they said had been effected by a diligent attention to
the registry. These reduced votes would raise Mr.
Entwisle's majority to 3,400. As it is not said that
the Conservatives manifested corresponding ac-
tivity in the Registration Courts, it appears but
fair to allow for some considerable increase
I Mr. Entwisle's majority on this head.
Let us, however, be content to take the ma-
jority as it actually stands—at 590. Is not
such a majority in favour of a Conservative candidate
—in a district which is constituted, a 3 it were, of a
federation of mercantile and manufacturing towns—
& district which may in truth be called all one great
manufacturing metropolis—is not such a victory in
such a place conclusive testimony to the real feeling
of the mercantile and manufacturing interests in the
country ? Let the decision be treated fairly as a test
of opimon—as test of the popularity of free
trade on one side, or protection on the
other ; and it will be admitted, we think,
that the friends of free trade could not
in England expect to find more favour-
able judges; and yet rotection carries off the great
majority of votes. We have not as yet heard any
reason assigned by the free trade advocates for the
defeat of their candidate, though defeat was tolerably
certain even at noon on Monday, and we own we are
at a loss to conjecture what apology they will offer.
As we have said, Government influence, aristocratical
influence, local territorial influence, are wholly out of
the question in a district like South Lancashire, all
cut up into small possessions, with a population of
more than half a million, and between fourteen and
fifteen thousand electors actually brought to the poll."
(The reading of the extract was repeatedly inter-
rupted by loud laughter and derisive cheers.) What,
was Lord Francis Egerton a small proprietor ?
(Cheers and laughter.) Was Lord Derby a small
proprietor ?—(Renewed laughter.) It was true that
the Earl of Derby had not issued his fiat that his
tenantry should vote against free trade. But there
was a way of signifying, through the steward, how
the "Rising Son" would wish the tenantry to vote
—(Great cheering and laughter)—and accordingly
there had been put forth a circular amongst the
tenants, stating how much the Noble Lord would do
if the tenants of his father would vote against free
trade—(Cheers)--and he (Mr. Cobden) did believe
that the Derby tenantry, almost to a man, voted
against the free trade candidate.—(Cheers.) Out of
the sixteen thousand and odd electors who voted at
the late election, there were four thousand six hun-
.lred tenants-at-will entirely at the disposal of those
(Hie r hear.)en.— y The had been told that
tlem
NLanchester showed but a small majority in favour of
free trade. But it was to be recollected that Man-
+ester was. included in a district which extended to a
3ircuit of fourteen or fifteen miles round the town.
the tenantry of Lord Francis Egerton and the others
hemmed the electors of Manchester in, and kept them
in a state of siege.—(Cheers.) The truth was
chat, in the result of the election, they were swamped
by the tenantry of those who brought them to the
poll, just as if they had been their own quadrupeds.—
(Hear, hear.) If the tenants-at-will were taken away