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 from the Factory and Poor Law questions, on both of which Cobden took an unpopular view. The Free Trade agitation was claimed by the Chartists as originally a working-man's agitation. It certainly figured largely in the agitation connected with the name of Hunt, and "No Corn Laws" was a cry at Peterloo. The middle classes, it was argued, had refused to aid in the agitation then, but were now ready to take it up in opposition to another propaganda, which threatened their own newly acquired political dominion. Unfortunately for Chartist solidarity, however, there was no complete unanimity in the opposition to the Anti-Corn Law League. Not every Chartist was opposed to the League, and not every Chartist was hostile to Free Trade. Some were quite prepared to leave the League alone to press the one question while they agitated for the Charter; others were afraid that the League would swallow up their own movement. Some believed that the Corn Laws were an atrocity which ought to be removed; others were Protectionists, like Feargus O'Connor. Some believed that the League was wasting its time, since Free Trade would never be attained without the Charter, and were therefore anxious to gain middle-class support for a joint programme of Charter and Free Trade. In fact every variety and combination of views existed amongst the Chartists upon this question. If there was a definite line of demarcation amongst them, it was between the agriculturists and the industrialists. Many Chartists, whose views are represented by O'Connor and O'Brien, regarded the industrial system as a whole as something unnatural, and they therefore harked back to a purely agricultural society, which O'Brien visualised as communistic and O'Connor as individualistic. Others accepted the industrial system and tended to be Free Traders. From other evidence, of which more will be said later, it appears likely that the most ardent followers of O'Connor's later "back-to-the-land" cry were the unfortunate industrialists who had been crushed by the competition of steam—the handloom weavers and stockingers. These men had long been crying for Protection—protection of wages and protection for their handicraft. Free Trade and Competition had no attractions for them.

A few samples of Chartist argumentation may here be cited. The Free Traders at Sunderland had called upon the Chartists there to aid in their agitation. Williams and Binns were the Chartist leaders; they were sensible and moderate men who