Vie Probintes.
The Manchester Anti-Corn-law Festival was a grand ana imposing exhibition of the numbers and influence of the advocates of free trade. Four thousand persons assembled on Monday in a pavilion erected for their reception, in Peter Street. The building was 150 feet long and 105 broad. It was illuminated by twenty-lour chandeliers, and dra- peried with about twenty thousand yards of pink calico. Over the pre- sident's chair " Justice" was written in gigantic letters formed of gas lights. Among the other mottoes on the walls were—" Landowners, honesty is the best policy," " Total and immediate repeal," and " A fixed duty is a fixed injustice." A gallery ran along three sides of the pavilion, and was crowded by " Lancashire witches " in their evening costume. Altogether the spectacle was most magnificent and striking. At four o'clock the seats were taken without the least confusion, the arrangements to prevent disorder having been excellent. Mr. O'Con- nell did not arrive till the company had taken their scats, having stopped at Salford. The Morning Chronicle says he was enthusiasti- cally received at the Railway Station by a crowd, who escorted hint into town : the Times alleges that the multitude were principally Chartists prepared to hoot him, but that he left the Station by a side- door, and escaped in a coach to the Pavilion. Be this as it may, the whole assembly in the Pavilion rose on his entrance, and cheered him heartily for several minutes. Besides Mr. O'Connell, the following Members of Parliament were present—Messrs. Villiers, Mark Phillips, 0. Wood, R. Walker, Thornely, Phillpotts, Baines, Scholefield, Marsland, Gisborne, Hind- ley, Ainsworth, J. Stewart, Brotherton, Ewart, Vigors, Denistoun, Fenton, Warburton, Oswald, Wynn Ellis, Chalmers, Aglionby, Hot- loud, and Sir De Lacy Evans. Not Members—Milner Gibson, Shar- man Crawford, Ebenezer Elliott, J. A. Young, Baines juilior, Dr. Epps, G. Thompson, Cobden, Reverend Thomas Spencer, and many gentlemen of Manchester and the neighbourhood. Delegates from numerous towns were also present. Mr. J. B. Smith, President of the Manchester Anti-Corn-law Association, was in the chair.
We have not space for a detailed account of the speeches, which occupy nine columns of the Morning Chronicle. The chief speakers were the Chairman, Mr. Mark Phillips, Mr. Villiers, Mr. Gisborne, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Cobden, Dr. Bowring, Mr. Sharman Crawford, Mr. Gibson, and Mr. George Thompson. The assembly appeared to be unanimous for total and immediate repeal. Many facts were men- tioned showing the injurious consequences of restriction, not only on the commercial, but the agricultural interest; and the relief which an abolition of all protective duties would bring to all classes. But that relief could only be obtained by it successful conflict with the Legislature. As this point was well put by Mr. Villiers, who placed before the meeting the actual state of the corn-question we make room for an extract from his speech—by far the best which ;he evening pro- duced—free from claptrap, and full of pith. Though, as moping for success, he regarded the event of that alerting with hig,11 interest, as likely to influence the judgment of the country, yet it was not with feelings umningled with regret that he reflected that a measure of smelt undoubted justice could only he obtained by drawing men from their homes to make them parties to movement and agitation. For why were 80 many citizens drawn together that duty? It was in the cause of complaint, to express their strong sense of wrong, mid declare a determined will to obtain redress. They were there, in truth, in conflict with the Legislature ; a Legis- lature which, in his judgment, had perverted its power, had broken its trust in maintaining the interest of its class at the expense of the community at large. It was sheer necessity, therefore, which forced prudent men into that species of civil war. But however great the evil of that collision, they must all feel it was less than the endurance of the odious law they sought to change. It was therefore cheering to him to see something like a revival of that old spirit that used to animate the mercantile and busy classes in this country, and to see them shaking off their apparent apathy, and once more standing erect as one man in the one cause of public good, and fearlessly denouncing that reckless injustice which was then disturbing the business and deterioratina the condition of the people ; and he took hope front observing the extent tit this gathering and the condition of those by whom it was composed, that pos- terity would learn that though the commercial classes endured a degrading and injurious law twenty-five years, yet when experience had left no man in doubt as to the necessary mischief consequent upon it, and had fully disclosed the shameless delusion of' those fallacies by which it hail been maintained, that they had risen up with becoming spirit and told their rulers to look to it, that
their patience was exhausted, that every promise of the law had been broken, every expectation disappointed that had been raised, aml that they would en-
dure it no longer. That was, then, the state of the question. * * * He believed that the total repeal of these laws was recommended no less by justice and principle than by the absence of all hazard in effecting it. He said this in vindication of their views ; brit he did not wish to divert their attention from the difficulties which surrounded the case, or to lead them to expect that because the total repeal was due, that therefore it would be easily obtained. He asked their attention rather to the fact that he had not raised by his motion last year the question of the nature or extent of the change, but that whether there should be change at all; and they knew that, though the Ministers of the Crown had voted and spoken in &roue of the motion, there had not been found two hundred Members who would admit the evils of the existing law. Be therefore had little faith in what could be obtained from the Legislature at present ; and; he did not feel certain that it was not better policy to wait yet in the hope of getting a complete redress, than to take the most perfect measure such a Parliament as this MIS, under any circumstances, likely to offer. Much had been accomplished already in dissipating error and promulgating truth by the talent, energy, and the liberal aid which had gone forth from this great capital of British commerce. This again was being greatly aided by the pre- sent calamitous consequences of the law; and he should himself; after more information bad been diffused and more suffering had been endured, (of which be regretted to see the prospect,) feel more sanguine of success in obtaining a total repeal of these laws than any one had been justified in being a few months before the total abolition of slavery, the total emancipation of the Catholics, or the complete adoption of the startling project of postage reform. He felt sa- tisfied, then, whoa lie considered the numbers that were really interested in the truth being known in this matter, and the facilities that now existed for dif- fusing the truth, that their opponents would yield if they did not. This per- severance, however, he thought a condition of their success ; for if they exhi- bited any lack of zeal or any indifference again on this question, far better would it have been that this meeting should not have been held ; for in pro- portion as they were now exciting the expectations of the people, so would be the disappointment if they at all gave in ; and on any pl'OSUMCCI failure on their part, so would be the confidence assumed by those who maintained the law. He was, however, convinced that he was not addressing men who had come there merely to swell an idle show ; but rather those who bad descended into the field of agitatiott with reluctance and from necessity, but having entered it would not leave it ingloriously ; and that they would feel that there was neither sense nor honour in giving this great example of agitation to the country, and awakening every man in the country to a due sense of the great wrong which these laws inflicted on him, if they did not feel that their cause was just, and in that consciousness pledge themselves to leave nothing undone to obtain suc- cess.
Mr. Cobden also impressed upon the assembly the necessity of per- severing activity in making converts among the farmers. There are many calm, thinking men, who have abstained from agitation on this and other subjects, upon the ground that we should wait until the evils of bad laws have so manifested themselves as to hold out a rational hope of suc- cessful opposition. That time has arrived. Two failing harvests—the trans- actions of the great leviathan of credit, the Bank, and above all, a failing reve- nue, prove that the landowners have carried the pinch a little too far. Better still for the purpose of such men as those to whom I have referred, there is, I will not say a fortunate, but a lucky prospect of a still worse harvest next year. This, then, is the time to have those opinions indulged in their closets carried into operation ; and, by cooperation with us, to effect the repeal of these laws. This, however, cannot be done without money ; and the way to carry on war successfully is to carry it into the enemy's camp. You must send lecturers throughout the country. We have tried the experiment in such towns as Exmouth, Falmouth, and Chichester ; and we have never found a man to stand up in the face of the agricultural labourers and defend those laws which are said to have been passed for their exclusive benefit. The Re- form Bill has altered the tactics of agitation. It was all very well to storm the citadel of corruption which formerly existed, by a sudden onslaught. When the aristocracy could only rely on Gatton arid Old Sarum, they yielded to the strong demands for Catholic Emancipation, for the repeal of the Test Acts, and for the Reform Bill. If we now rise up, however, and demand the repval of the Corn-laws, the aristocracy fold their arms while we make our cornpkiuts, and retort upon us that Wiiichester, Chichester, St. Albans, and Salisbury send men pledged to vote in favour of these laws. This is the breakwater to the current of public opinion, and until we can convince the fanner that his interest is identified with ours in getting released from a wretched servility, and the peasant that he is reduced to want and suffering by the present system, our efforts will be in vain."
In consequence of the great size of the building and the multitude of persons present, many of the speeches were heard with difficulty, and there was occasionally some confusion, but no ill-htunour. A con- siderable sum was collected at the table, on the suggestion of the prac- tical Mr. Cobden. The immense assembly broke up without the least disorder.
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