THE LATE SHEFFIELD MEETING.
TO TILE EDITOR. 01' THE SPECTATOR.
Sheffield, 8th .Tanitary 1840. Sin-You will have seen by the papers, that on this day week the Whigs and the Chartists in Sheffield bad a tolerably fair trial of their relative strength. As none of the four local journals are disposed to do justice to one of the parties-as misrepresentations have already got into the daily London as well as other papers-and, moreover, as the lessons deducible from the facts of the Case ought not to be withheld from the party in power, I send you what I in- tend to be a brief but impartial account. Chartist», in its mildest and best form, has got great hold of the working classes of Sheffield; nor are they generally, as the %%lags well know, an igno- rant or unpriucipled race among whom these doctrines are diffusing themselves. The working men of Sheffield, as a whole, have been pronounced by the Whigs -themselves-and it is true-to be as intelligent as any class of mechanics in the ikingdom. During the late Chartist demonstrations, nowhere did that body manifest less of violence; in fact, they have shown a good degree of forbearance .under insults the most annoying; and several are even now suffering incarcera- tion fairly for conscience' sake. But you know, Sir, GEORGE HENRY WARD, Esq., M.P., (though he pro- fesses to be something more,) is one of the crack men of the Whigs ; Joins PARKER, Esq., M.P., is connected with the Ministry ; and on these accounts the party have felt terribly bothered that the whole people are not ready to join chorus in laudation of Whiggery. A few weeks ago, a number of working men-not Chartists-led on by an old promoter of Whig demonstrations, and encouraged by the chief manufacturers, circulated an address to the working men of England on the subject of Corn- law repeal. This article, though prosy and by no means tit to stand by the side of the telling appeals which emanated some time since from the Working Man's Association, was on the whole creditable to its authors. As you are aware, this address has gone the round of the newspapers. Besides the above.. named address, a public meeting was announced to take place on New Year's- day, to which both the Borough Members were invited : It was arranged, too, that Mr. WARD should, during this visit amongst us, fulfil his pledge of giving • an account of his Parliamentary conduct. Since the Chartists have received so recently here both insults and something snore from the Whigs, is it to be wondered at that they feel no sympathy with their late persecutors? is it to be wondered at, that the great Sheffield demon- stration of New Year's-day in favour of a repeal of what the Chartists consider as but one portion of their enormous grievances-instead of a rapturous re- ception of Mr. WARD, I say, is it surprising that, instead of those results, they should upset or turn topsyturvy the whole proceedings ? On the morning appointed for the holding of the public meeting, the place was filled long before the hour arrived. On the proposal by the Repeaters of a chairman, the Chartists moved, and some say carried, an amendment ; the tarrying of the amendment the Whig papers deny. On their own showing, however, they must have been completely beaten, or why did the promoters of the meeting leave the place after the motion for adjournment had been nega- tived? and why did so many of the abettors of the Whigs-sotne of them even on the platform-remain jim the place in utter ignorance that their friends had departed ? Further, it is asserted by the Whigs themselves, that a little time after the chairman and the M.P.s with their friends had planted themselves in Paradise Square, the meeting in the last-named place amounted to no less than six thousand. By this assembly, thus illegally met together-this hole-and- corner meeting-the Corn-law business MIS comfortably gone through. Now mark what follows: according to Whig evidence, the Chartist mischief-makers 'came, and then the number was swelled to fifteen thousand! Which party, then, had the majority ? On the conclusion of the Corn-law business, it was put to the meeting, 'whether Mr. WARD should then fulfil his promise by giving an account of his Parliamentary conduct : the immense meeting determined that he should, almost unanimously. The working men of Sheffield are well aware, that among a -House of six hundred misrepresentatives of the People, Mr. WARD is, if we may not say one of the best, at least one of the least bad. On the Condition-op England question, however, Mr. WARD and the working men of Sheffield are " wide as the poles asunder;" and at the conclusion of his speech, though the matter was pronounced disputable, he had proof sufficient given him that even he is not the man of their choice, It is a strange libel on the working classes of Sheffield to say, as the Sun said in its strange Tory article of Tuesday, that they are not Corn-law Repeaters: they are as much so aS the Whigs, and for more weighty reasons. What is the position in which the parties stand to each other on this subject ? The Whig manufacturers are Repeaters, not because they feel sym- pathy with EBENEZER ELLIOTT and the starving mechanics, (with EBENEZER ELmorm they cannot sympathize,) but because they now plainly feel that their profits are going, The poor Chartists arc Repeaters because work fails them, and also because, in consequence of bread being dear, their families are starving. Is it asked, why then don't the Chartists join the masters on that one ques- tion on which both could heartily unite P-Perhaps for a very patriotic reason. Is it not possible that those contemned Chartists by perseverance in self-denial may ultimately induce the middle classes to allow the country's salvation? At present the Chartists well know that the Whigs will join them as far as their own interests prompt ; but that so far from their being disposed disinterestedly to aid them further, they would rather prevent them if possible. Your obedient servant, A MORAL-FORCE CHARTIST, AND A CORN-LAW REPEALER.
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