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366 and so many hands were unemployed; but Sir James Graham, in utter ignorance or in utter recklessness, and regardless of the replies that had been published, actually reminded the deputation of the mills that had been erected during the previous five years, and requested to know whether several new ones had not been erected in Lancashire, and how that fact, if true, could be consistent with the almost total want of demand alledged to exist. Mr. Chappell said that, admitting that each of those mills were now in full work, which was far from being the case, as many of them had never been completed, and others went no further than the laying down of the foundation, they would only absorb at the rate of 500 persons to each establishment, less than one year's increase of the population, thus leaving the other four years' increase totally unprovided for. Mr. Bright repudiated making the question one of mills, or of Manchester only; distress prevailed more largely where there were no mills. Sir James, driven from that ground of defence, betook himself to another, not more tenable. He said he wished to know, if trade was so bad, how it happened that the consumption of raw cotton, by our manufacturers, was greater during the last six months than during the correspondent period of the previous year? The prompt reply by Mr. Thomas Ashton was, that they were spinning coarser numbers, and consequently consumed a greater quantity of cotton with the same labour and machinery. Mr. Ashworth having alluded to the increased rents and increased comforts of the landowners, Sir James suddenly and rather insolently inquired, whether he was to infer that the labouring classes thought they had some claim to the landlords' estates. Mr. Henry Ashworth, under some emotion, appealed to the deputation whether, in their opinion he had conveyed any such idea, and they all declared that it was utterly impossible that such an impression could have been conveyed by anything he had said. At the close of the interview, which lasted