1841.] Accession of the Queen to fall of Melbourne. 293 ministerialists, so that if the Whigs had been left to themselves they would have been in a minority of 137. The second case was that of the vote on Mr. Villiers' motion for the repeal of the corn laws, made on the I5th of March, and defeated by 300 to 95. The majority was made up of 226 Tories and 74 Whigs, the ministers again being in a minority of their own party. Thus far had the Whigs advanced in " a policy which irritated a nation and destroyed a government." * Under such conditions, the other Parliamentary proceedings of the session could not possess much historic interest ; but two events occurred during the year which exercised much influence, in the first place upon public opinion outside, and afterwards upon the action of the legislature itself. The People's Charter was published on the 8th of May, 1838. It had been drawn up by a committee appointed in the spring of 1837, consisting of six members of Parliament and six Corking men. f The charter was a carefully prepared bill con- taining provisions for registration and the conduct of elections, but its chief feature was the formulation of what were called the " six points," universal suffrage, vote by ballot, e'qual electoral districts, annual Parliaments, abolition of property qualifica- tion of members, and payment of members. The other event alluded to was the formation of the Manchester Anti-Corn Law Association, which in the following year was merged in, or rather developed into, the famous Anti-Corn Law League.^ It was unfortunate that anything like a division of the Radical party should have been caused by the agitation of these two subjects. Parliamentary reform and corn law repeal were both essentially Radical measures ; that is to say, they were both strongly and persistently opposed by the Whig leaders and ministers, and as strenuously desired by the Radicals. The repeal of the corn laws was one of the objects which
- Spencer Walpole, "History of England from 1815," vol. iii. p. 392.
t "The Life and Struggles of William Lovett," pp. ,ttseq. On p. 114 the names are given, the members of Parliament being J. A. Roebuck D. O'Connell Col. Thompson J. T. Leader C. Hindley W, S. Crawford
The "League " was formally established on the 29th of March, 1839.
