Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/184

168 members the origination of a similar mode of agitation. In the course of the year I attended some ten or a dozen of meetings held in towns near Manchester, and towards its close there was a demand for the services of other members of the council, whose ready eloquence, perfect mastery of the subject, and their influential station in our commercial and manufacturing community, gave weight to their teachings.

On the 30th of November, a crowded meeting was held in Warrington, at which were present, as deputies from their respective Anti-Corn-Law Associations, Mr. Cobden, Mr. W. Eawson, and Mr. John Brooks, of Manchester, and Mr. Lawrence Heyworth, of Liverpool. Amongst the audience were a number of chartists, and their presence gave a turn to the proceedings which was exceedingly encouraging to the friends of the free-trade movement, for it showed that a fearless and uncompromising course of argument, expressed in a conciliatory spirit, would ensure the respect of a body of men, who, in their zeal for the charter, who were apt to forget what was due to others who demanded a more immediately practicable measure of reform. The chairman, Mr. Holbrook Gaskell, introduced the deputation, and then Mr. Rawson made a sensible short speech. Mr. Brooks followed in a mingled strain of good argument and familiar and amusing illustration. Mr. Heyworth characterised the Corn Law as operating to make the poor still poorer, and the rich still richer, and said that the remedy lay in making a proper use of the elective franchise. An intelligent-looking man, named Travis, rose and proposed a resolution, uniting opposition to the Corn Laws with the six points of the charter, but arguing that the repeal of those laws would throw land out of cultivation. Mr. Rawson ably showed the fallacy of Travis' argument, and drew from him the admission that he only opposed repeal as a single measure. Mr. Heyworth said that the manufacturers had