Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/267

 the loudest demonstrations or the most brilliant declamation with which we have ever tried to interest you. (Cheers.) Upon the subject of this registration there is one thought that occurred to me as our chairman was giving you an account of the proceedings in the county revision. It is this, that the counties are more vulnerable than the small pocket boroughs, if we can rouse the free traders of the country into a systematic effort such as we have exercised in the case of South Lancashire. (Hear, hear.) In many of the small boroughs there is no increase in the numbers; there is no extension of houses; the whole property belongs to a neighbouring noble, and you can no more touch the votes which he holds, through the property, than you can touch the balance in his banker's hands. (' Hear, hear,' and a laugh.) Now, the county constituency may be increased indefinitely. It requires a qualification of forty shillings a year in a freehold property to give a man a vote for a county. I think our landlords made a great mistake when they retained the forty- shilling freehold qualification; and, mark my words, it is a rod in pickle for them. (A laugh, and cheers.) I should not be surprised if it does for us what it did for Catholic Emancipation, and what it did for the Reform Bill—give us the means of carrying free trade; and if it should, the landlords will very likely try to serve us as they did the forty- shillings freeholders in Ireland, when we have done the work. ('Hear, hear,' and ' Oh, oh.') The forty shilling franchise for the county was established five or six centuries ago. At that time a man, in the constitutional phraseology of the time, was deemed to be a 'yeoman,' and entitled to political rights, provided he had forty shillings a year clear to spend. That was at that time a subsistence for a man; probably it was equal to the rental of one hundred acres of land. What is it now? With the vast diffusion of wealth among the middle classes, which then did not exist, and among a large portion, I am happy to say, in this district, of the superior class of operatives, too, that forty-shilling franchise is become merely nominal, and is within the reach of every man who has the spirit to acquire it. ('Hear, hear,' and cheers.) I say, then, every county where there is a large town population, as in Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, South Staffordshire, North Cheshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, and many other counties I could name in fact, every other county bordering upon the sea coast, or having manufactures in it—may be won, and easily won, if the people can be roused to a systematic effort to qualify themselves for the vote in the way in which the South Lancashire people have reached to the qualification. We find counties can be won by that means and no other. (Cheers.) It is the custom sometimes for many to put their savings into the savings' banks. I believe there are fourteen or fifteen millions or more so deposited. I would not say a word