Archibald Prentice

“ Yes, there is one branch of your trade which does indeed flourish; I mean the manufacture of customers into rivals! Yes, and if the Corn Laws continue but a little longer, the trade of your rivals—planted, nurtured, and matured by the madness of the landed supporters of a suicidal administration—will continue to flourish and blossom, and bear fruit, over the grave of British prosperity! Haste, then, and destroy these deadly Corn Laws, ere they subvert the empire. Let every trade, from every town, one by one, and again, and again, send petitions to Parliament. ”

“ All honour to the intelligence and the virtues of men so acting. We must and do condemn all application of physical force to prevent men willing to work from earning their daily bread. We must and do condemn, and condemn most strongly, this interference with the rights of labour; but at the same time we must applaud, and most highly applaud, the rigid observance of the law, in all other respects, by men of whom it has been falsely said, that if they were in possession of power they would use it to the destruction of all property. ”

“ Yes, gentlemen—for while I would use caution, I will not indulge in cowardice—yes, and your starving population is willing to purchase that pabulum of life; not, indeed, with wealth,—for, like the poor disciples of a poorer master, they shake their tattered garments, and say, 'Silver and gold we have none,' but they are willing to purchase food with the well-strained sinews of nervous industry, with the sweat of their honest brows. ”

“ What an honour this to the longsuffering working men of Manchester! What a strange spectacle this, when the fiat of the multitude settles whether this man shall work or that man shall not, and when a quarter of a million of persons, unemployed, might spread havoc and confusion all around, Here is the law in one instance set at complete defiance, and a new law of the multitude in full force—that none shall work without their consent ”

“ Would that the history of mankind were capable of such brief but precious record! In our little narrow history-ground of Manchester, we find, now and then, some such refreshing resting-places, some such green in the thirsty waste. In thirty years of war and scarcity, hunger and nakedness, to three-fourths of the community, are three or four years of peace and plenty nothing to the afflicted millions? ”

“ What is the pretence upon which you tax the people's food? We have been told by the right honourable baronet that the object of the law is to fix a certain price for corn. Since I have been listening to this debate, in which I heard it proposed by a prime minister to fix the price of corn, I doubted whether or not we had gone back to the days of our Edwards again, and whether we had or had not travelled back some three or four centuries, when they used to fix the price of a table-cloth or a pair of shoes. What an avocation for a legislature! To fix the price on corn! ”

“ We have opposed to us a very powerful body; we have opposed to us the aristocracy of the country, who, although few in number, are great in power and influence. We require our whole force to move them. We require a union of the people for that purpose. But, gentlemen, I should be the last man in the world to recommend any hollow truce, any union of the people which would require the least abandonment of principle on any side. ”

“ The people should not stand idly looking for favourable circumstances; they ought to endeavour to create them. They ought, like the farmer, to prepare their ground, and put in their seed, that whether there be bright sunshine, or clouds and rain, there may be a good return. Looking to what Peel will do, without any effort to direct what Peel shall do, is as absurd as it would be of the farmer to expect all from the genial warmth of spring and the ripening heat of summer, without doing anything himself. ”

“ To assume that the House of Commons really represented the people was thus an assumption that forty-one out of forty-two of the male adult population were in favour of the Corn Laws With such proof of the mockery of representation—with such feeble result, in that house, of nearly three years of most energetic agitation, was it matter for wonder that many, in the despair of ever overturning selfish legislation while the house was so constituted, should begin to think that representative reform must precede all other reforms? ”

“ She is a woman—she is a wife—she is a mother; tell her the nation which has just rejoiced in the birth of a son she has given to be the soverign of these realms, contains millions of husbands, wives, and children, who know not where to obtain to-morrow's bread.— (Hear.) Implore her, as she desires to save her country from distraction, to gladden homes that are desolate, to bring upon her the blessings of the perishing, and to rule over a happy and contented people,—to exercise all the influence the constitution gives her in favour of that great measure which we have advocated to-night. ”

“ There is a boundless market, and a kindred population; let us take their corn as well as their cotton; let us, by free-trade principles, arrest their impending tariff, and secure their confidence and goodwill. If the government does not do its duty and free the people, they will try to free themselves; they feel they are not represented; they are arraying on all hands to demand their rights. A crisis is at the door, and unless Parliament comes forward with the relief that is demanded, and before winter adds its horrors to the existing distress, it will be out of our power to avert the mischief ”

“ If you are curious in human misery, if you are anxious to know what a shabby tyranny can bring the rank and file to suffer, come, at your leasure, to the leaguer' of Bolton and see what the people sleep upon, if they do sleep. Chopped dirt, the sweepings of a hen house mingled with a proportion of sparrows' nests, to show that men had heard of straw, would be the best representatives of what they huddle upon in corners, and call it resting. And all this because Sir Having Greedy votes in the House of Commons for closing honest trade, as the means of doubling his rents. ”

“ Gentlemen, our strong case at this moment is America; we must urge this on all occasions; if you meet with a sceptical, incredulous neighbour, who doubts that we could get instant benefit from the repeal of the Corn Laws, take up the case of America. (Applause.) It is no use, gentlemen, America opening her ports to us at a low duty; we cannot get any more trade from them unless we will take what they have to give. ”

“ How can be sell more goods and thus give more employment to labour, except he can get an enlarged market, and thus meet the wants of the increasing population of the country? There is no other way. (Loud applause.) Our business is not to alter constitutions; we don't seek for chartism, whiggism, radicalism, or republicanism—we simply ask for an enlarged market to enable the capitalist to extend the sale of his goods and thereby to increase the demand for labour and augment the rate of wages. ”

“ Great forbearance on the part of the working classes having temporary power—great forbearance on the part of those who have the law and the civil and military forces on their side—mutual good will instead of mutual hate—a general disposition that labour should have its full reward—are there not here the elements of mutual agreement? And we here express our full conviction that a friendly conference between masters and men would, at once, put an end to the dispute so far as wages are concerned. ”

“ But we blame not the industrious classes alone. The half starved and uninstructed hand-loom weaver has an excuse in the supineness of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which, for seven years, has not made a single movement against the monopoly which is destroying that trade, the protection of which is the declared object of the association! Gladly should we see the merchants and manufacturers rouse themselves from their apathetic sleep ere their trade be transferred to France, to Switzerland, and Belgium, and the United States—nay, and even to the semi-barbarous Russia. ”

“ There is no point in the upward movement of humanity at which the empire of woman stops for ever. As civilisation transforms and elevates itself, this empire must be transformed and elevated with it, not annihilated;—there would then be an inexplicable void in the social harmony, and in the providential order of things. ”

“ Gentlemen, you are strong in the country; you are stronger than you think in London. The middle classes in London are almost to a man for the repeal of the Corn Laws. (Applause.) You are stronger than you think in the south of England; you have strength in the rural boroughs that you are not aware of; and I will tell you now what I did not venture to say on a former occasion—that I don't think Manchester will carry the repeal of the Corn Laws, but that we shall carry it only by making it a national question. ”

“ It was worth something on the Saturday night, to see the working man's wife need her husband's help to carry home the heavy basket, filled with bread and beef, and flour and suet. But then came the reflection that the Corn Law was unrepealed, and that a single bad harvest might mar all this comfort. Much outcry came from the landowners at the cheapness of provisions, as if heaven-sent plenty was a curse. ”

“ I will certainly not countenance the repeal of the union, because it will he equally injurious to both countries. ('The Corn Laws.') I really do not know, gentlemen, that there is any reason whatever why I should detain you longer; but I cannot help saying, gentlemen, that I have never, in any place where I have had occasion to address a large concourse of people, I have never seen a concourse of people behave with more temper and propriety, and in a more becoming manner, than I have done at Manchester. ”

“ If I could, or if I had any influence with the Prussian ministry, I would say, Take goods from England, and no doubt the English people will have good prices for them, for I do not think it likely our merchants will long sell their goods unless they can obtain their value.' And I believe the great secret of the mode of changing the legislation of every country is to change your own; admit what you want, buy what you want upon the cheapest terms, and be sure that those who sell it to you will be paid. ”

“ I wish the country to know, I wish Sir Robert Peel to know, I wish her Majesty's ministers to know, that the inhabitants of our borough have endured their unparalleled distress with unparalleled patience. There is, however, a point beyond which human endurance cannot go; and unless some means are taken to relieve the distress of the poor of Stockport, I wish the country to know, I wish Sir Robert Peel to know, I wish the government to know, that I cannot, and will not, be responsible for the consequences which may follow from the present state of things. ”

“ Buller had appealed not only to the passions, but to the appetites of the people, there were loud bursts of laughter, as if it had been a capital joke against the argument for the repeal of the Corn Law, that the starving ought to have food. ”

“ I hear on this side of the house, in all directions an acknowledgement of the principle of perfect freedom in the trade of corn. (Hear.) But, there are some of my noble and right honourable neighbours who think that there should be a duty for the purposes of revenue. How can there be a duty for revenue which is not a duty for protection? (Hear.) The gentlemen who think that the Corn Laws ought to be repealed, but cannot reconcile themselves to their immediate repeal, are showing a very great sympathy for the few who are gaining, and vastly little sympathy for the many who are suffering. ”

“ The aristocracy had joined the outcry against the new Poor Law, and talked about the rights of the poor merely by way of throwing as they thought a tub to the whale, and drawing the attention of the people from looking at heavier grievances. ”

“ The landowners there may, for aught I care, do what they like with their own but I affirm they have no right to complain, where, exposed to the bracing and healthful breeze, of free competition, when, by thus refusing leases and preventing the improvement of the soil, they show themselves so regardless of the people —practically saying, that no more inhabitants shall dwell in this kingdom than we choose to raise food for; compelling emigration of both capital and labour, which would otherwise have borne their share of the burdens of the country, thus crippling the resources of the nation ”

“ Importance of the business," he had said in his Book of Fallacies, "extreme difficulty of the business—danger of innovation—need of caution and curcumspection—impossibility of foreseeing all consequences —every thing should be gradual—one thing at a time—this is not the time—great occupation at present—wait for more leisure;— such is the prattle which the man in office, who, understanding nothing, understands that he must have something to say on every subject, shouts out among his auditors as a succedaneum of thought." ”

“ Let the memorial which shall thus express your own wishes be carried to the homes of those for whose welfare it prays. Carry it to the cellar where mothers are perishing; ascend from the cellar to the garret; gather as you go, the signatures of those who are pining for bread. Thus let those who have nothing, and those who at present enjoy competence, appear together in the presence of our patriot Queen.— (Cheers.) If it be possible let millions of women urge their united appeal to a woman's heart; it cannot be that it shall prove a vain appeal. ”

“ Once get rid of this immense mass of ignorance and prejudice that binds them to the present law; once get rid of these Corn Laws, the cementing influence which binds them all to one faction, and you will have full scope to bring them to support the interest which you believe to be the true interest of all, and as anxious to co-operate with you to obtain good government and every benefit which just and impartial laws could gain for you. ”