Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/136

 A vacancy in the representation of London had been occasioned by the death of Sir Matthew Wood. The conservatives and the monopolists had invited Mr. T. Baring, and the reformers and free traders Mr. Pattison, to become candidates. Mr. Bright alluded to this opportunity given to the citizens of London:—

Landlords! They built not this magnificent metropolis—they covered not these forty square miles with the great mass of human dwellings that spread over them they crowd not our port with shipping —they filled not your city with its monuments of science and of art, with its institutions of literature and its temples of religion— hey poured not that stream of commercial prosperity into the country, which during the last century has made the grandeur of London, quadrupling its population, and showing that it has one heart with the entire community.They! Why, if they were to spend—if you could impose on them the laws which they would impose upon you, and they were bound to spend in this metropolis all they received in their rents; if there were no toleration for French wines or foreign luxuries; if they were prohibited from storing and locking up in their remote galleries works of art, real or pretended, which they prize as property; if here, amongst the shopkeepers of London they were bound to spend that which they had obtained by their rents: it would be wretched repayment to you for what you have forfeited by the absence of free trade. (Loud cheers.) It is as it were to make war upon towns and cities, to cut off their supplies of food, to limit their resources, to levy upon them other taxation: for in the vast spread of this metropolis, where there are nearly two millions of inhabitants probably, not less than six or eight millions sterling is wrung from your resources in different ways, not going into the pockets of the landlords, but being lost by the way, a great portion of it, in order that their extortion may keep up a veil on its horrid countenance, and have something the show of legitimate taxation, instead of being apparent and downright plunder. (Loud cheers.) The time is opportune for the appeal which has been made to the inhabitants of this metropolis, and for the appeal to those among you who enjoy the franchise of the city of London. (Cheers.) There will, in a very short period, be an opportunity for you to show decidedly that the principle of free trade is consecrated in your hearts, and guides your votes. (Loud cheers.,) I trust the contest will be by no means a personal one, but one wholly of principle, and that no ambiguous pretensions, no praise of free trade, with certain qualifications and accommodations necessary to the hustings, will be tolerated for an instant; but that the plain and