Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/331

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MEETINGS IN THE COUNTRY.
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Corn Laws. On Friday, Saturday, and Monday, meetings of the conference were held; and then the members separated, each, in his own locality, to aid in the agitation which had been renewed with increased intensity. In hundreds of places, the free traders had not waited to read the reports of the spirit-stirring speeches delivered in the conference, their own parliament, or the resolutions recommendatory of the course to be pursued, but had met simultaneously, and declared their determination never to rest satisfied until every shred of the poverty-creating law should be destroyed. Within a few hours of the arrival, in Manchester, on Thursday morning, of the papers containing Sir Robert Peel's plan, a numerous meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law Association was held, Mr. George Wilson in the chair, in which the chairman, Mr. Thomas Bazley, Mr. Alderman Callender, Mr. Grave, Mr. T. B. Potter, Mr. Robert Gardner, Mr. Absalom Watkin, Mr. Andrew Hall, Mr. James Howie, Mr. F. Warren, Mr. George Hadfield, Mr. William Shuttleworth, and others denounced the ministers' new scale of duties as an insult to the community. In the evening, short as was the notice, and although the admission was a shilling, the proceeds to go to the Bazaar fund, a meeting was held in the Theatre, attended by upwards of 2,000 persons, Mr. Wilson in the chair, at which resolutions of determined perseverance in demand for total repeal were passed by acclamation.

Following these manifestations, came the London newspapers, with reports of the proceedings of the conference, the which gave a further impulse to the agitation. A requisition to the mayor, (William Nield, Esq.,) signed by upwards of a thousand merchants, manufacturers, and others, was presented, and a meeting was held in the Town Hall, on Tuesday, February 15th, Mr. Thomas Bazley in the chair, but it was found that the large room would not hold one half of those who crowded for admittance, and after the resolutions which had been pre-