1843,
Ar. 38.

324

Li¥® OF COBDEN.

[cHAP.

oity which had given rise to the adage, <The voice of the
people is the voice of God,”” foresaw what the effect of the
measure would be upon wages, and from 1815 to 1819 there
never was a great public meeting at Manchester at which
there was not some banner inscribed with the words, No Cor
Laws.
For these taunts, the House took a speedy revenge:
When Cobden sat down, the benches were crowded, and the
member for Knaresborough got up. In a speech ten day®
before, Mr. Ferrand had said that the member for Stockport
had during the last twelve years accumulated half a million
of money ; and that when night after night, during the last
session, he was asserting that the Corn Laws had ruined the
trade in Lancashire, he was actually at that very time running
his works both night and day. This was only one item it
B gross and violent attack on the whole class of northern
manufacturers. He now returned to the charge with greater
excitement than before. He quoted a great number of
instances, where the system of truck was forced upon the
helpless workmen. The artisans, he said, were compelled
bo live in cottages belonging to the employer, and to pay
rent higher by one-tenth than their proper value. They
were poisoned by the vile rags and devil’s dust with which
they had to work, and which the masters used for the fraudulent
 adulteration of their cloths. As for scarcity of flour, it
arose from the consumption of that article by the manufac
turers, in a paste with which they dishonestly daubed the
“ace of their calicoes.
The country gentlemen shouted with exultation., They
were ill qualified to judge the worth of these extravagant
Jenunciations. The towns of Lancashire were more unfamiliar
 to them in those days than Denver or Omaha are
in our own, and any atrocity was credible of those who lived
and worked within them. The whole conception of moder?