5 JUNE 1841, Page 1

As electioneering advances, so the Anti-Corn-law agitation seems to acquire

a greater substance. Several candidates have conceded to the impulse of the day and declared for alteration of the Corn-laws ; while some even of the Tory candidates, catching permission from Sir ROBERT PEEL'S reserve as to " details," have evinced a considerable readiness to use a good hustings-liberality of insinuated intentions. Meanwhile, people go on petitioning : at the date of the last official report, the number of signatures to petitions for repeal of the Corn-laws amounted to 624,000, and for the Government proposition on the subject to 25,000. A counter- agitation -has been attempted, but it does not prosper : the signa- tures to petitions against alteration of the Corn-laws, according to

the document above quoted, were but 36,000—about one to twenty. There may be touch of humbug in the cry of " cheap bread," but the counter-humbug of " high rents" were too gross for any measure of popular gullibility. The Chartists, it is true, impede the agi- tation of the selfish middle-class, and have succeeded in some im- portant instances : but it is questionable how far their obstruction will affect the immediate issue at the poll, or whether it does not even supply a zest and a reality to an agitation which threatened to be of the very tamest description.