The Chronicle this morning brings up arrears in reporting the
pro- ceedings of the Anti-Corn-law League at Manchester on Wednesday and Thursday. We cannot even mention all the speakers, much less their topics : nor is it very necessary, for the speeches were of the same material, and of similar fashioning, with hundreds or thousands that have preceded them. The reports serve chiefly to show the magnitude and remarkable character of this festival-agitation ; which seems highly successful On Wednesnay morning, there was a meeting of deputies representing manufactures and commerce : leading men attended from all parts of the United Kingdom ; and many facts of popular distress and commercial difficulty were detailed, and resolutions were passed declaring the state of trade to be a source of alarm, and calling for the removal of restrictive laws. In the evening there was a great festival in the Free Trade Hall ; which was splendidly and tastefully decorated. Twenty- one tables, seventeen of them a hundred feet long, were surrounded by 3,400 ladies and gentlemen, besides 400 in the galleries. Mr. Mark Philips took the chair ; several other Members of Parliament were present, including Daniel O'Connell ; and, said Colonel Thompson, (in one of the most pointed and finished of all his speeches,) foreigners of distinction. Next morning in the Town-hall, there was a meeting of 300 ministers of religion, "to consider the influence of the Corn; laws upon the physical, moral, and religious condition of the people.' Again, on Thursday evening, there was another great festival at the Free Trade Hall; but this time the refreshment-tables were ranged under the galleries, and in the intervals of the speaking the company prom enaded the capacious area.
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