ABSTRACT
The beginning of 1843 saw workmen busily engaged in erecting the Free Trade Hall, which, intended to stand for two or three years, by which time it was supposed the Corn Law would be repealed, remained standing, often used, until 1853, when the defeat of the Derby-Disraeli ministry, and the avowal in both houses of Parliament, that the principles of free trade were fully recognized there, gave assurance that agitation on the question was no longer necessary. It had been determined that the weekly meetings of the League should be continued at Manchester until they could be held with greater national effect in Exeter Hall or in one of the great metropolitan theatres, and on the 5th January the Corn Exchange meetings were resumed. The Rev. Dr. Hewlett, of Coventry, who was the first speaker, declared that he felt it his bounden duty to oppose every enactment that interfered with the communication of the Giver of all good to all mankind. The Hon. C. P. Villiers, who was most enthusiastically received, followed, and ably vindicated the constitution and proceedings of the League from the charges brought against them by the monopolists, who were now following the very course which they professed to condemn so strongly. He met and confuted many of the fallacies by which the monopoly was defended, and expressed his hope of the success of a movement which, considered in all its bearings, in its ultimate consequences, and the peaceful relations which it was calculated to establish between men in different climes and countries, would be seen to be admirably designed to spread the spirit of Christianity, and to diffuse the blessings of plenty all over the earth. Mr. Mark Philips, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. John Brooks followed, and the unanimous thanks of the meeting were voted to Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Villiers. On the Wednesday of the same week, a tea party of the working classes, 700 in number, was held in Bolton, addressed by Mr. Brotherton, Mr. Brooks, Dr. Bowring, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Moore, at which a great number of working men came forward and added their mites to the rapidly increasing League fund, intended to furnish the means, at the rate of a thousand pounds a week, for twelve months, of instructing the people in the doctrines of free trade.
