Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/445

 then; and do you think it will be content that you count it as nothing in your estimate of public opinion? (Hear, hear, and cheers.) But turn elsewhere. What says the metropolis of Scotland, Edinburgh? Do you reckon on having a member for that city to vote in the glorious majority which you anticipate? (Hear, hear.) Turn to Dublin. Will you have a representative for that city with you? Go to Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Liverpool; take every town containing 20,000 inhabitants, and I defy you to show that you can reckon on a single representative for any town in the kingdom which has such a population. I tell you that you have not with you now a town in Great Britain containing 20,000 inhabitants. ('Oh, oh!' from the protectionists; some honourable members mentioning 'Liverpool,' and 'Bristol.') No, no, no; you have neither Liverpool nor Bristol. (A laugh.) That shows you have not weighed these matters as you are bound to weigh them. (Laughter.) Don't be led away by the men who cheer and hallo there, like the school boy whistling in the churchyard to keep up his courage. Examine these facts, for those who were formerly your leaders have weighed them already—(hear, hear, and cheers), and there is none among you deserving to be your leaders unless they have well considered these important matters. I repeat that you cannot reckon upon any town of 20,000 inhabitants sending up a representative to vote with the great majority you expect to obtain. True, you will have your pocket boroughs, and your nomination counties. (Hear, hear.) And I will say a word or two directly as to the county representation. But I now place before you broadly the situation in which you will find yourselves after a dissolution. I will assume that you have a majority, derived from pocket boroughs and nomination counties, of twenty or thirty members. But on this side you will see the representatives for London, for South Lancashire, for West Yorkshire, for North Cheshire, for North Lancashire, and the members for all the large towns of England, Ireland, and Scotland: nay, not one member will come from any town in Scotland to vote with you. (Hear.) Now, what would then be your situation? Why, you shrink aghast from the position in which you would find yourselves. There would be more defections from your ranks, pledged as you are,—steeped to the chin in pledges. So much alarmed would you be at your position that you would cross the floor to join us in larger numbers than you have ever yet done. (Laughter.) I tell you there would be no safety for you without it. I say that the members who came up under such circumstances, to attempt to maintain the Corn Laws, from your Ripons and Stamfords, Woodstocks and Marlboroughs, would hold those opinions only till they found it was determined by public opinion to repeal them. They could not hold them one week longer; for, if the