"0. XL] ggp LWAGUE AND THE WORKMEN. 249
“And T have no ohjection in admitting here,” Cobden went
to say, “as I have admitted frankly before, that these Ar. 38
artifices and mancouvres have, to a conaiderable extent,
®ompelled us to make our agitation a middle-class agitation.
[do not deny that the working classes generally have attended
 our lectures and signed our petitions ; but T will
8dmit, that so far as the fervour and efficiency of our
Bgitation has gone, it has eminently heen a middle-class
"Gitation. We have carried it on by those means by
“hich the middle class usually carries on ibs movements.
We bave hed our meetings of dissenting rainisters ;
76 have obtained the co-operation of the ladies; we have
fosorted to tea-parties, and taken those pacific means for
®rrying out our views, which mark us rather as & middleclagg
 get of agitators. . . . We are mo political body; we
have refused to be bought by the Tories; we have kept
8loof from the Whigs ; and we will not join partnership with
tither Radicals or Chartists, but we hold out our hand
ready to give it to all who are willing to advocate the
al and immediate repeal of the corn and provision
wa

184%.

In another speech, he ssid the great mass of the people
Stuck to the bread-tax because it was the law. He did
hot, charge the great body of the working classes with
taking part agains the repeal of the Corn Laws, but he
thargeq the great body of the intelligent mechanics with
Standing aloof, and allowing 8 parcel of lads, with hired
kngyeg for leaders, to interrupt their meetings.” As time
Went, on, the shave of the working class in the movement
became more satisfactory. Meanwhile, ib is important to
R0tice that, they held aloof, or else opposed it as interfering
With those claims of their own to political power, which the
Reform, Act had so unexpectedly baulized.
Recovering themselves from the disappoinvuent and cor.