ABSTRACT
There was no great town in the United Kingdom, throwing a powerful influence upon the agitation in favour of the Keform Bill, which, more than Manchester, kept steadily in view the practical measures that might be expected as the result of an amendment of the representative system. In other places there was a laudable impatience of the absurdity, apparent to all who possessed a portion of common sense, of permitting a mound of earth to send two members to Parliament, while great manufacturing or commercial towns, each the centre and market of important districts, sent none; but nowhere more than in Manchester—perhaps nowhere so much— was the attention placed upon the end while endeavouring to obtain the means. From 1815, to the period when some considerable parliamentary reform was seen to be inevitable, its necessity was mainly argued from the impolicy and the injustice of the corn laws; and the strong conviction of the impoverishing effects of the landowners’ monopoly gave concentration to the energy which was put forth to obtain such a representation as would guarantee the adoption of free trade. Free trade, then, in the first place, peace, non-intervention in the affairs of other states, retrenchment, full religious liberty, the abolition of slavery in our colonies, wide constituencies in municipal elections, protection to the voter, and parliaments more frequently accountable to the people, were the objects sought to be obtained;• and, these kept always in view, an earnest and effective effort was made for the Keform Bill, as the instrument by which they were to be accomplished. To this constant forward look to the practical, may be attributed the lead which Manchester took in the anti-corn-law movement. The first election was to be a protest against monopoly, and the strongest that could be made, as it was believed that the representatives of great constituencies would have an influence in the newly constituted House of Commons proportionate to the number of voters represented.
