Lord Ashley has been personally called to account on the
subject of his Free-trade leanings, and he has observed a silence as curious as his out- speaking. He is making a tour of Short-time agitation in the factory-dis- tricts; and at Bradford this week he has been catechized on some unex- pected points. He was asked whether he paid such low wages as Si. or 7s. a week to agricultural labourers on his estate ? Lord Ashley replied, that it was quite untrue: he had no estate ; his sole property being a house in town and an annuity. Perhaps, suggested another querist, it was his father? Lord Ashley called the wandering speaker to order, but said that the story was equally untrue of his father. The pertinacious querist, after an allu- sion to the Corn-laws, asked whether Lord Ashley would support any mo- tion brought forward for the revision of the commercial system ? Lord Ashley said that the question was altogether ill-timed and out of order, and he should never think of answering it until he came as a candidate for the suffrages of the electors of the borough; an event not very likely to occur.
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