The tickets for the Manchester Anti-Corn-law Festival, 3,000 in number,
have been all issued, and it is now difficult to obtain one at a high premium.
Many of the principal merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen of Liverpool, assembled on Thursday in the Sessionsliouse in that town, and passed resolutions in fitvour of repealing the Corn-laws. The ehiet speakers were Messrs. Thornely, Earle, Bolton, Brown, Rathbone, Lloyd, and Murray. Mr. Lloyd is a Conservative, and he moved an amendment declaring it "the bounden duty of Government to en- courage and promote the extension of the Colonial possessions of Great Britain, as the best mode of increasing its trade, commerce, and manu- factures, and providing employment for the great mass of operatives and mechanics." Only three or four hands were held up ter this
amendment ; which has opposed with some ability by Mr. Murray, a working man,—though his observations were directed against the Corn- laws and their supporters, not against the use of colonies.
A large party of gentlemen dined together in the Exchange Hall, Nottingham, on Monday, to hear Dr. Bowring and others descant upon the evil operation of Corn-laws. At the dinner all went off very well ; but at a public meeting held the next day to petition against the Corn-duties, the Chartists assembled in force, and carried an addition to the resolution proposed by the promoters of the meeting, that "no good can ever be obtained, nor the people's wrongs be redressed, till the Charter becomes the law of the land." The Chartists, after the meeting broke up, paraded the market-place and principal streets, sing- ing "Rule Britannia."
At a public meeting in Stockport, on Monday, the Chartists were de- feated in an attempt to substitute one of their resolutions for an Anti- Corn-law resolution, moved by the Liberal Member for the borough, Mr. Henry Marsland.
At a Conservative dinner in Buckinghamshire, on Wednesday, the Duke of Buckingham, on proposing " The Farmers of England," spoke as follows-
" At that time of the evening he should trouble them no further than to warn them again and again of the dam:, eons position in which their interests
were placed, by men who wily handled them with a view to the preservation of
place at any cost. He wm:s.,1 them of the danger that, with the aid of their Parliamentary friends, they might seek to avert it, and give effect to the law as it now stood. They should not concede one single phi it, or all the rest would be taken. Concession was the worst imaginable policy : they had the right principle, and they should adhere to it. The poor man had flantd out that if he bad bread cheap the fiwnicrs would be ruined, and he himself would be unable to get any employment. As long as they maintained the Corn-laws, they would be prosperous; but if they allowed these laws to be interfered with, they would bring destruction on ti ISelvCs and on the country at large."
At a late dinner given at the Eagle Hotel, in Cambridge, by the Earl of Hardwicke to his tenantry, his Lordship in addressing them said, that he inferred front tie.. ,:reitt outcry of the manufacturing towns that the Corn-laws \VOUld Silfiriiy be repealed; and they (the tenants) must endeavour to grow tel ulna corn as possible, to give them any chance of competing %yids die I4eign grower ; and in any experiments they wished to try he would bear half the expense.—Candn'idge Inde- pendent Press.
There was a good general inquiry both for goods and yarn yesterday; but as a great majority of the :pinuers and manuliaturers held out re- solutely for higher prices, iiiclu the buyers in general were not dis- posed to give, the amount of business did not quite correspond with the extent of the inquiri,.s. In sleek: few eases an advance was given ; in the remainder the Bill pricts of the previous week were obtained; and, generally speaking, the market More a firm and healthy appearance.— Manehesite Guardian of Wednesday.
The trade of Tewkesbury coal bows getting worse. Numbers of the stocking-makers are tinemploye,l, and some are allowed to get tis. per week, out it which they have to pay t..0,1,(/. for frame rent ; and other unavoidable expenses amount to about 18. 311, more, leaving 2s. SP. to maintain a man, his wife, and in many eases a large family. How much longer is this horrid, eruct, and heartrendiug system to be con- tinued P how nitwit longer \vitt our legislators continue to maintain laws which are fitst driving front our country all the large capitalists and destroying our ingenious but poor mechanics :—Cludtenham Free. Press.
Previous page
