History of the Anti-Corn Law League/Chapter1
HISTORY
OF
THE ANTI CORN LAW LEAGUE.
CHAPTER I
1832.—ASSERTION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES.
There was no great town in the United Kingdom, throwing a powerful influence upon the agitation in favour of the Reform Bill which more than Manchester, kept steadily in view the practical measure that might be expected as the result of an amendment of representative system. In other places there was a laudable impatience of the absurdity, apparent to all who possessed a portion of common sense, of permitting a mound of earth to send two members to Parliament, while great manufacturing or commercial towns, each the centre and market of important districts, sent none; but nowhere more than in Manchester—perhaps nowhere so much—was the attention placed upon the end while endeavouring to obtain the means. From 1815, to the period when some considerable parliamentary reform was seen to be inevitable, its necessity was mainly argued from the impolicy and injustice of the corn laws; and the strong conviction of the impoverishing effects of the landowners' monopoly gave concentration to the energy which was put forth to obtain such a representation as would guarantee the adoption of free trade. Free Trade, then, in the first place, peace, non-intervention in the Affairs of other states, retrenchment, full religious liberty, the abolition of slavery in our colonies, wide constituencies in municipal elections, protection to the voter, and parliaments more frequently accountable to the people, were the objects sought to be obtained ; and, these kept always in view, an earnest and effective effort was made for the Reform Bill, as the instrument by which they were to be accomplished. To this constant forward look to the practical, may be attributed the lead which Manchester took in the anti-corn-law movement. The first election was to be a protest against monopoly, and the strongest that could be made, as it was believed that the representatives of great constituencies would have an influence in the newly constituted House of Commons proportionate to the number of voters represented.
Strangely enough, the first candidate for the representation of the new borough was one who seemed to be perfectly indifferent about free trade, and, until the eve of the first election, strenuously opposed to any change that would interfere with the interests of the West India planters, all monopolists, and, to prevent innovation, the supporters of every monopoly. In the First week of 1830 William Cobbett had delivered four lectures in Manchester to crowded audiences. His leading propositions were, that lessening the amount of the currency had increased its value; that the increase had added to the claims of all creditors, and especially of the public creditors; and that the consequent fall in the price of every commodity, without a correspondent reduction of taxes, had occasioned intolerable distress. Two omissions, however, were remarked upon by even his most ardent admirers,—the monopoly of the corn growers, and the want of such representation in the House of Commons as would counteract the predominant influence of the landowners. But from the period at which speculation commenced as to the probability of the Penrhyn seats being transferred to Manchester, Mr. Cobbett had been talked of by his disciples as the most fit and proper representative of the new borough; and had he been a man of ordinary prudence, he might have gained a strong body of adherents, for he had many admiring readers within its limits. It was his peculiarity, however, that in brandishing his formidable club he was as apt to strike friend as foe; and on the question of West India slavery be had absolutely gone out of his way to "hit" at a most respectable and influential body of man amongst his anticipated constituents.
In 1828, in advocating, in the Manchester Times, the abolition of slavery, I had stated the great cost of our West India colonies to the mother country, and had expressed my regret that Mr. Cobbett had bestowed much abuse on the abolitionists, and attributed the then distress of the planters to the efforts of the abolition party, when he ought to have known that their embarrassments, proceeding from the gross mismanagement of their estates, had existed long before any strenuous effort had been made for the manumission of their human chattels. In a letter to the electors of Manchester, dated 1st October, 1828—for he was than a candidate for its representation—he said: "How shall I express my contempt of the man who could have put upon paper the falsehood, that I have branded as canters and hypocrites 'all who think that Englishmen ought not to be taxed in order to enable the owners of estates in the West Indies to hold their black brethren in thraldom.' There is no answer to a falsehood like this, other than that of calling the utterers by a name which need not be put on paper, but which will suggest itself to every man. But, gentlemen, the thing to admire here is, the profound, the gross, the worse than animal ignorance of this Mr. Prentice, who sets himself up as a teacher of politics to the enlightened people of Manchester. He does not know, then, that the old West India Islands have not taken from England, for ages and ages, one single penny in the way of tax; that while millions on millions have been squandered on the worthless colonies of North America, the West India colonies have not only maintained their own internal government, and paid the troops stationed there, but have been loaded with enormous charges in the shape of pensions and sinecures to the aristocracy of England. * * * The blacks may be Mr. Prentice's brethren for anything I know or care; but the West India proprietors and occupiers are the brethren of Englishmen; and Englishmen have stood by and seen them taxed without mercy, but have never paid one farthing of tax for them."
Although the reiterated statement that the sum of £3,800,000. a-year was drained from the people of this country for the support of our slave colonies, remained uncontradicted, some of the persons in Manchester who called themselves Mr. Cobbett's friends, in August, 1832, placarded the town with his article of 1828, containing the charges of "malignant falsehood" and "worse than brutal ignorance;" and it was the policy of those persons to raise a prejudice against many of its inhabitants, who had laboured earnestly for the improvement of the poor at home, that they wished to waste people's sympathies on distant objects. While these injudicious adherents were thus giving currency to the abuse which he, in his indiscretion, lavished upon benevolent men, and adding to it all manner of vituperation upon the advocates for negro freedom, thinking that thus they were giving the best evidence of their zeal for the cause of their leader, he himself had been gradually opening his eyes to the gross iniquity of holding even "black men" in bondage, and to the fact that "slavery was made use of as the means of keeping us in slavery;" and he had plumply declared that it was no longer the question now whether we should abandon the West India Islands altogether, or uphold slavery, but that he should support, to the utmost of his power, any man who would vote for its abolition. The following, addressed to the people of Manchester, gave much more surprise to those who were hunting on the wrong scent than it gave to the persons who had been vituperated:—" I have always said that I detested slavery in every form, and under every name; that I never would accept of the services of the slave when his master offered them to me for nothing; that, however, the question with us was, whether we should abandon the West Indian Islands, or continue to maintain this slavery. Since I was last in the north, I have seen quite enough to convince me, that it would be better to abandon the islands altogether than to uphold the negro slavery. It now appears, that, in fact, these slaves are in general the property of English boroughmongers; that they are so in great part at least; and that the fruit of the labour of these slaves has long been converted into the means of making us slaves at home. Travelling in Wiltshire some years ago, I found a whole village the property of one man, and I found the neighbouring borough one half his property also. His establishments were those of a prince, both in town and country, and I now find that the source of all this was the labour of slaves in Jamaica. Besides these discoveries, brought to light by recent meetings, of the aristocracy being the chief proprietors in the islands there are the bloody transactions which have recently taken place; there is the execution of the dissenting ministers, whose offence appears to have been that of teaching the Christian religion to the slaves—that religion forbidding the holding of men in slavery. For these reasons, and particularly for the reason that slavery is made use of as the means of keeping us in slavery, I am resolved to support any man, to the utmost extent of my power, who shall propose the abolition of the slavery of the negroes. When I find the Marquis of Chandos, the Earl of Harewood, and great numbers of the deadly enemies of reform, to be great. holders of slaves, the natural conclusion is, that their continuing to hold slaves cannot be good to the people of England."
The conversion came too late, for it was regarded, as I believe unjustly, as a means of recommending himself to the abolitionists in Manchester, whom he had offended. In commenting upon it, I said,—"What will the persons who have been hunting on the wrong scent say now, when the dictator of their opinions acknowledges the truth of what we have always asserted, that the burdens of our otherwise overtaxed people at home are grievously aggravated by the demands which are made upon us to support the system of slavery in our colonies? Will they deny now, what we have always asserted, that of the miserable earnings of the labourer in Connaught and the weaver of Lancashire, in considerable portion is taken in order to furnish the West India proprietors with the chain and scourge with which they keep their fellow men in bondage? * * * The abilities of a writer are one thing—the qualifications of a legislator another, and the fault of Mr. Cobbett—his utter want of discretion is a most serious disqualification where an instant reply may be made. * * * The truth is, Mr. Cobbett is too much under the influence of self-will to encounter practised and cunning debaters, and our conviction is, that after having been beaten or bathed by men whom he despises, and whom, probably, he has a right to despise as infinitely below him in intellect, but who, having facts at their finger's end are enabled to meet declamation with figures, he would either retire from the contest altogether, or satisfy himself with an occasional oration without waiting for discussion"
Soon after this the anti-slavery cause received an impulse in Manchester which operated further unfavourably on Mr. Cobbett's claims to its representation. On the 18th of September, 1832, Mr, George Thompson, who had been zealously and effectually labouring in the cause of negro emancipation at Liverpool, made his appearance in Manchester, and delivered a lecture in Irwell-street Chapel, surrounded by a number of estimable persons of the Society of Friends, and before him as respectable and numerous an audience as ever had been congregated in Manchester. He was young and vigorous, self-possessed, clear and distinct in his articulation, with a voice modulated to be heard in a whisper or peeling like a bell; perfect master of all the facts and arguments of his case, and with great power of appeal to the moral end religious feelings of his auditors, He proceeded, in a strain of impassioned eloquence, to dwell upon the various evils which were peculiar to British colonial slavery, or were fostered, multiplied, and ripened under its influence. I can do no more than barely enumerate the frightful catalouge, every item of which was powerfully illustrated by the lecturer. Slavery cursed the soil—originated and perpetuated the sale of human beings—doomed helpless, innocent, and unoffending infants to interminable thraldom—depressed the body by labour, while it prostrated the mind by excluding the ordinary and required motives to exertion—entailed physical sufferings of every possible description—operated to produce a fearful process of depopulation—was characterised by gross inequality of law and right—by shameless maladministration even of those partial laws, and threw in the way of the slave almost insuperable obstacles to redress—created and continued an odious and inveterate distinction of caste—engendered ignorance in its worst forms, and most fearful consequences—extinguished self-respect in the bosom of the negro, while it inspired hateful feelings of arrogance and despotism in the breast of the master—rendered the negro dark sullen, and revengeful—reduced the master from a state of refinement to one of debasement and demoralization—was a source of danger from assassinations, conspiracies, rebellions, the machinations of foreign foes, and the judgments of insulted Heaven—led to a disregard of religion, its practices, its ministers, its altars, its ordinances, and its disciples—to the demolition of chapels and the expatriation of missionaries—was the lasting cause of hostility and alienation between the colonies and the parent country—rendered those dependencies in which it existed in the greatest degree insecure—was as impolitic as it was inhuman—was as selfish and partial as it was impolitic—and was withal upheld at an expense of money, character, and life, sufficient to deter the mercenary and appal the humane—was inconsistent with our loud professions of attachment to the principles of civil and religious liberty—was a violation of the constitution of the land—a system of cowardice and murder, supported by means the most paltry and degrading—of decided irreligion and impiety—creating an amount of responsibility the most awful, and a load of guilt which it became a Christian nation to seek deliverance from without delay. Throughout the whole of Mr. Thompson's address there was the most profound and almost breathless attention, interrupted only by bursts of applause, excited by the frequent forcible and eloquent appeals to the morality and the justice of the audience. The more immediate effect was to detach from Mr. Cobbett many of his most influential friends amongst the electors of Manchester.
At the end of the previous June, Mr. Mark Philips issued his address to the electors. After referring to a requisition from 2,350 of his fellow townsmen, signed nearly twelve months before, he said that the arduous struggle which had in that interval taken place, had only more strongly confirmed his convictions that reforms beyond those which had been secured by the Reform Bill, were needed to complete the system of representation. He was therefore in favour of shortening the duration of parliaments, and, to prevent the reconstruction of close boroughs, of the ballot. He pledged himself to give his support to the most severe and rigid economy in. expenditure, to the abolition of all useless places and unmerited pensions, and to the removal of the burden of even a necessary taxation from the industry to the property of the country. As good government essentially depended upon the general intelligence of the people, he should be most anxious to assist in removing all those taxes on knowledge which, to the disgrace of our system of taxation, obstructed the cheap and universal diffusion of information. He declared himself an enemy to all restrictions and monopolies, which, depriving alike the capitalist of his remuneration and the labourer of his wages, impeded the natural progress and prosperity of our trade. It would be the duty of e reformed parliament to abolish the East India, the Bank, and the timber monopolies, and that greatest of all monopolies which was upheld by the Corn Laws. Against. the monopoly of the church, Mr. Philips did not so decidedly declare, but he said that tithes must be abolished, and an unexceptionable system of maintaining the clergy substituted, and such means adopted as would distribute the revenues of the church in a just and fair proportion to the duties to be discharged. In emphatic language he declared his unqualified detestation of slavery, and his conviction of the necessity of immediate emancipation. Mr. Philips did not undergo much cross examination when he addressed meetings in various wards, although some of the more ultra-Cobbettites tried to create a clamour against him, because he would not pledge himself to sponge out. or reduce the national debt.
The candidate brought, forward by the tories and corn-law protectionists was Mr. John Thomas Hope, a nephew of the Earl of Hopeton, their leaning to rank being stronger than their desire to have a representation of their trading interests. In other respects their choice was a judicious one. He was of a family of great respectability, and deservedly respected. He had courteous and conciliating manners, possessed a gentlemanly appearance, and was a pleasing speaker. He was a great favourite with his party, and was looked upon by his political opponents with much indulgence—the more, perhaps, because they saw very little danger of his being elected member for Manchester. He could not expect to be returned for such a town for his conservatism alone. It was necessary that he should promise some advantages to a manufacturing constituency, and, on his appearance in the Exchange Dining-room, on the 24th July, after stating that although he had opposed the Reform Bill as it then stood, he was bound to acquiesce in the decision of the legislature, he acknowledged the necessity of some change in the government of India; and declared, amidst loud cheers, that he was fully prepared to open a free commercial intercourse with that country. His feelings, he said, were in favour of the abolition of slavery in our West Indian colonies, but he was afraid that the emancipation would cause an increase of slave labour in the countries over which we had no control, and that therefore he could not support any equalization of the sugar duties. He thought British agriculture required protection, but would prefer a moderate fixed duty to a sliding scale. I was curious to learn what Mr. Hope would think a moderate duty, and asked how much he would have it to be. A perfect hurricane of groans and angry shouts arose, and an obvious determination was shown that the question should not be answered. I waited till it subsided, and again asked, "How much?" The storm was renewed. Again I waited till it was over, and again asked, "How much?" Mr. Hope seemed to be ashamed of the violence manifested by his supporters, but afraid of giving a distinct answer, and he resumed his speech by saying, "I shall be glad to meet all the difficulties by which I know this question is surrounded;but in coming to a decision I should studiously keep in view all the varied interests of this great community which would he affected by it." He concluded a well delivered speech by saying: "I beg distinctly to state that I will not be bound by any decided pledges on any particular question. On any other subject I shall now be happy to give any explanation, subject, however, to the qualification to which I have alluded."
Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd made his first public appearance as a candidate, in the Exchange, on Thursday, July 12th, introduced by conservatives, and addressed the subscribers there assembled from the bar counter. I endeavoured to catch some definite exposition of principle in the midst of the very vague generalities which formed the staple of his speech. Occasionally there was a tone of liberality that might lead one to think that a more explicit utterance was to follow; but nothing explicit did follow, except that he would rather have the general concurrence of the constituency than the support of any party, and warned the electors not to choose representatives from that class of persons "who, with the best intentions, but with more zeal and ardour than discretion, would wildly rush through the temple of our constitution, and with a bold and reckless hand, proceed to remove the pillars and buttresses on which it rested; with an honest view, no doubt, of letting light into its recesses, and widening its avenues, but at the imminent risk, as he that he conceived, of levelling the whole edifice to the ground." Like Mr. Hope, too, he expressed himself unwilling to give pledges which might fetter his independence. It appeared doubtful whether his speech savoured most of stand-still toryism, or somewhat progressive whiggism; but there was a sound of liberalism about it that took well with his hearers. I resolved to hear him a second time in the belief that something might be uttered to show more decidedly what his political opinions were.
The opportunity soon occurred, for on Thursday, August 2nd, Mr. Loyd appeared on a platform on the Clarendon Inn bowling green, in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, to address the electors of that township. His speech was as vague as that which he had delivered in the Exchange, and like that had a tone of liberalism about it which made it acceptable to the greater number of his hearers, consisting almost entirely of electors; and it required some moral courage to attempt to show the hollowness of the professions which the audience had recognised as being made in good faith. As the election for one of the representatives of Manchester turned upon the cross-examination which he underwent at the close of his speech, I copy some of the questions and answers from my paper at the time:—
There were now four candidates in the field, and for each there was a newspaper. Mr. Cobbett's cause was advocated by the Manchester and Salford Advertiser, edited by Mr. James Whittle, a good hater, who wished to send to the House one who would tell the whigs that they were base, bloody, and brutal. Mr. Philips had the earnest aid of the Manchester Times because he was a thorough free trader, and a progressive reformer, considerably in advance of the whig administration. Mr. Hope, as a tory, was consistently supported by the Courier. Mr. Loyd, as a professed whig who would not practically be much ahead of stand-still conservatism, had the earnest, so far as it could be earnest, advocacy of the Guardian, which gave a faint support to Mr. Philips, not on account of his political opinions, which were too decided to suit its taste, but because there was next to a certainty that he would be elected, and it might as well sail so far with the stream. Wheeler's Chronicle also gave such support as it could give to Mr. Loyd.
There were four candidates in the field, and each had support of a newspaper thoroughly devoted to his interests; but there was not a candidate for the votes of each of the four distinct classes of politicians amongst the electors—radicals, whig-radicals, whigs, and tories, for Mr. Loyd was nearer to conservatism than to whiggism. Reformers knew from the first that neither Cobbett nor Hope could be returned, and the questions were whether Loyd was a fit man to be returned along with Philips, and, whether the progressive party had strength enough in the electoral body to return two members, without the aid of a considerable number of whigs who had hastily given in their adhesion to Loyd. I had no doubt on the first question. To send a man to the House who, had he been there, would have opposed the most popular parts of the Bill by which Manchester was enfranchised, would have been a most deplorable political suicide. After his appearance on the Chorlton-upon-Medlock bowling green, I felt bound further to show that he was not the man to receive the suffrages of free traders, believing that the exposition of his unfitness might bring another and a better man into the field, and in my paper of August 4th, I said: "When Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd came forward to claim the suffrages of the electors of Manchester in an address which, though abounding in professions of liberality, contained not one single sentence which could enable any one to form an opinion as to what his real principles were, we naturally looked to the characters of the persons who were publicly supporting him, that, from the company he kept, we might and, when we saw that one of the judge what he was; most prominent among them was Hugh Hornby Birley, a man who, with the stain of the 16th August, 1819, upon him, attaches a stain on all on whom he inflicts his friendship; and that three-fourths of the others were the known enemies of reform, and the known persecutors of reformers; that there were not half a dozen of them all who, in their lives, had ever done a single act for the removal of any national or local abuse, we concluded that he was not the man who was likely to unite the suffrages of the newly enfranchised electors of Manchester. Nor was the assurance which Mr. Loyd gave to Mr. John Edward Taylor (of the Guardian), and which faction to that very consistent, seemed to give entire satisfaction to that very consistent, and very thorough, and very disinterested reformer, that in the progress of the Reform Bill, he had been made a convert to its principles, at all satisfactory to us. We wished to know what real meaning was couched under the vague generalities of his address, but no public opportunity was given to any one to pull off the mask which we verily believed to be worn. On Thursday, however, at the request, it is said, of many respectable inhabitants of the township of Chorlton-upon Medlock, Mr. Loyd came openly before the electors, and after a turgid speech, full of high-sounding words, carefully divested of all definite meaning, submitted himself to the ordeal of examination. From a report which had been pretty widely circulated that his committee had represented to him the necessity of expressing his opinion more unequivocally than he had done, it was generally believed that he would give some indication of being animated with the spirit of reform, and many honest but timid reformers who were disposed to support him, but remained in some doubt as to his real principles, attended, really desirous that he would explain himself a little more explicitly and a little more boldly. It is impossible to describe the effect which his answers produced. The electors had seen Mr. Mark Philips undergo the same ordeal, and had observed, with approbation, his honesty, ability, temper, and modesty. They had also seen Mr. Hope subjected to a searching examination, and, though they had disapproved of his the straightforward way in principles, they had admired which he had avowed them, and the gentlemanly courtesy of his manners. Having seen this, they expected, almost as a matter of course, that Mr. Loyd would at least show good temper if he had not ability, and address if he had not principle: but never were expectations so disappointed. We believed that the turgid speech would be followed by the dishonest shuffle, and we soon saw that our belief was well founded, for never, in all our experience of public appearances, did we see so miserable an exhibition;—we do not mean with regard to talent, for, where the intention is right, allowances are always made for the absence of ability;—we do not mean with regard to manners and temper, because the best and ablest of men may be uncouth and want equanimity; but we mean in the absence of every quality which men would desire in a legislator, and especially in the absence of honesty, the possession of which, without one particle of talent, would have saved him from an extent of evasion and shuffle degrading to any in any station, but in one who, if wealth can make the gentleman, ought to be one, was not only degrading but disgusting. Let any one read how he tried to avoid answering the searching question, (to Mr. Loyd more searching than to the auditors it seemed) if he would have supported the second reading of the Reform Bill, and he will not wonder that the persons assembled, who heard him speak throughout with marked attention, and occasionally with applause, should have expressed their feelings with groans and hootings, and that his questioner, who began his examination respectfully, should, as he went on, have changed his tone to that of an indignant counsel who has got a fencing and shuffling witness in the witness box. We learn that a number of those who purposed to support Mr. Loyd while they believed that he was a reformer, are now heartily ashamed of him, and are anxiously looking about for some straightforward man to be put in nomination in his stead."