At a crowded meeting of the Manchester Anti-Corn - law League, on
Thursday evening, Mr. Cobden, in measured but emphatic terms, called Lord Abinger to account for his side-blows at the League, his opinions and political economy, and his assertions of fact. For example, Lord Abinger asserted, that "the disaffection of the working classes does not seem to originate in any feeling of their own respecting their pri- vations or the high price of provisions." Mr. Cobden reminded him, that nearly 2,000,000 of petitioners for repeal of the Corn-laws "all expressed the privation to which they were subject and their suffering for want of bread"; and that upwards of 3,000,000 petitioners prayed for the Charter, in whose petitions there were the strongest allegations of extreme privation, want of employment, and the consequent absence a the means of subsistence ! Speaking of Lord Abinger's assertion, that those who sought the Charter aimed at the destruction of the mo- narchy, of the aristocracy, and of property, Mr. Cobden remarked- " I confess the charge of the noble and learned Lord, in which he charges the great body of the working classes with these felonious and treasonable designs, has been so calculated to prejudice the cause of those who have been tried at these Special Commissions, that if a motion were made in the House of Commons for an address to her Majesty to remit the sentence of those men, convicted pur- suant to the charge of the noble and learned Lord—I say, if the reports be true—if the words of the learned Judge be correctly reported—as at present advised, I should vote in favour of such a motion." (Loud cheering.)
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