A Free Trade dinner was given at Warrington, on Thursday,
by three hundred friends of Mr. Kershaw, the unsuccessful candidate at the late election. Sir Thomas Potter, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Hindley, Mr. Brother- ton, and several leading Free-traders of the North, were present. Mr. Cobden made a suggestion, which seems borrowed from the tactics of the Chartists or O'Connell. Mr. Kershaw, he said, was supported by the non-electors of Warrington to a man : three-fourths of the em- ployers of labourers were in the room at that moment : by what strange fiction then was another gentleman sent up to London to " represent" the borough ? Warrington was an epitome of the case of the kingdom ; and one general simultaneous meeting should be held to contradict such misrepresentation- " You have had," continued Mr. Cobden, " a fictitious declaration, obtained by fraud, partiality, and force, of the opinion of the electors; you have had the opinion of the coerced majority of the present constituencies given in favour of taxation—and taxation, too, not for the benefit of the state, but for the advan- tage of a few monopolists: it will now devolve upon the people to give an ex- pression of opinion—of their real opinion ; and 1 hail such a meeting as that of the greatest importance, inasmuch as it will tend to give the lie to that assertion that the people of this country are in favour of these iniquitous taxes. But, gentlemen, 1 think it would be as well if we made up our minds to a plan of meeting ; and I would venture to suggest that we must be prepared, at the proper time, for simultaneous meetings in every part of the kingdom. Oh yes, we will have one great and sacred day on which the people shall meet in every borough, in every town, and in every village in the kingdom. There assembled together under the constituted authorities, if they will call them together— and if they refuse, then the people must call themselves together—and there and then, on one day, throughout the length and breadth of the land, shall one unanimous appeal be made against that assertion of the landowners that the people of England are in favour of dear food. Let the landowners do the same, if they like. But they dare not. 1 challenge them to do it."
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