ABSTRACT
A meeting of the members of the League was held in the Free Trade Hall on Tuesday, October 28. The attendance from the neighbouring towns was very numerous, arrangements having been made with the railway companies for trains to return after the proceedings were closed. The audience mustered more than eight thousand, and hundreds went away without obtaining admittance. On the platform were the representatives of an amount of wealth and capital such as had never before been collected in the north of England. Mr. Wilson having taken the chair, introduced Mr. Cobden, who started at once into the object of the meeting, which was to point out the remedy for the famine which threatened our own island, and to avert the misery, starvation, and death of millions in Ireland. The natural and obvious remedy was to open the ports. Russia, Turkey, Germany, and Holland had done so, and why should not our government follow the example? Peel might apply it if he would. He would have the support of Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the vast multitudes of the people, and if with such support he shrunk from the task he would be a criminal and a poltroon. Mr. Cobden then referred to the rumours of a new Corn Law being intended, and said that some delusive modification would be made unless the country declared against the acceptance of either a fixed duty or a reduced sliding scale. Alluding to the changes made in many of the counties and boroughs by attention to the registrations, he said there was every reason to be hopeful, and concluded an eloquent speech by saying: “We must not relax in our labours; on the contrary, we must be more zealous, more energetic, more laborious, than we ever yet have been. When the enemy is wavering, then is the time to press upon him. I call, then, on all who have any sympathy in our cause, who have any promptings of humanity, or who feel any interest in the well being of their fellow-men, all who have apprehensions of scarcity and privations, to come forward to avert this horrible destiny, this dreadfully impending visitation.” The prolonged cheers that followed promised the increased activity that had been so earnestly recommended.
