ABSTRACT
The meeting in Covent Garden Theatre, October 12th, was an extraordinary one, for there was the excitement occasioned by the preparation for the city election, and the promise of addresses from Mr. Villiers, Mr. Cobden, Mr. J. Bright, and Mr. W. J. Fox. Crowded is a weak word to express the condition of the house. Stage, pit, boxes, and galleries were crammed, and every entrance, public and private, was besieged by crowds of eager applicants for admission, but for whom no room could possibly be found; although an additional gallery had been re-opened for the occasion, capable of seating from five to six hundred persons. As had been previously announced, the Hon. C. P. Villiers, M.P., presided, who, with Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, in the course of eloquent and argumentative speeches, strongly recommended active exertions on the part of every free trader to secure the election of Mr. Pattison. Mr. Fox, in reply to the vituperation against the League for its “interference” in a London election, said:
“I had imagined that if there were men who could point the path of improvement, which could lay their hand on a law and say this is bad, wrong in principle, and injurious in operation, and ought to be repealed—that when they could say that such is the course by which commerce may be extended, labour more amply rewarded, and industry more sufficiently encouraged, I should have supposed that the home of such men, their natural abode, should have been in London. I had supposed that when there was an appeal to be made against the infliction of wrong—that when the cry of justice was to be raised—that when the favouring spirit of public opinion, manifested by the daily organs of the press, or by the voices of assembled multitudes—was it not to be looked for that those who sought such things, and entertained such objects should be sure of finding their homes in London? (Cheers.) Such, I trust, will London be, and not a cistern for the foul toads of monopoly to knot and gender in. (Loud cheers) The feeling of the people with these men of Lancashire has crowned their heretofore honourable labours; and it now will, I trust, add a more brilliant victory than any which they have yet achieved as preparatory to the great final triumph. In our response to the appeal of these people I feel that their home is wherever the principles of truth and justice can prevail. (Cheers.) They are not for abstract justice merely—the meaning of which I take to be simply an abstraction of justice from the people: and wherever knowledge penetrates; wherever the multitudinous tracts which they put forth find their way to men’s intellects and hearts; wherever, by the growth of information, sound principles are generated, and the progress of social improvement is advanced—there the League has its home. Wherever there is hard endurance of imperfectly remunerated toil; wherever the artisan in the populous city has to grieve over the pittance which is all that he has to bestow on his family; or, in remoter districts, wherever the agricultural labourer looks around on the tattered vestments of his wife and children, and feels that they cannot even appear decently at church to receive the ordinances of their religion—there is the home of the League, to inspire despondency itself with hope, and to give the prospect of relief. Wherever in distant regions nature’s fertility runs to waste—where, for want of a demand for the power of human labour, ingenuity is not put forth, but the soil is doomed to artificial barrenness through the power of monopoly in this country, preventing the interchange for that which the cultivator would gladly make—there, too, is the home of the League, bringing the promise of richer harvests; there to clothe the distant cultivator, and to feed the artisan. (Cheers.) And wherever, on all future occasions, the battle of principles is to be fought in the electoral contests; wherever monopoly may raise its head and make its last expiring efforts against free trade—there will be the home of the League, to see fair play, to encourage the timid, and to cheer on the candidate who shall honestly advocate those measures which shall ensure food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and give life, spirit and power to all classes of society, and thereby showing that this country, has yet to run its career of prosperity and glory. (Loud cheers.) And I trust that the result of this election will be to show that where there is a legislature having in its hands the destinies of a great empire, there likewise will be the home of the League, proving that justice—no longer an abstraction—justice to all classes, from the highest to the lowest, is the surest guidance of legislative enactments, as it is the amplest resource of national prosperity.”
