why? Because the people almost universally understand that there can be no over-production, while any of their members are deficient in clothing, and that it is not machinery which throws them out of employment, but that selfish legislation which prevents them from exchanging their woollen cloths, their calicoes, their fustians, and their cutlery, for the corn which abounds in other lands, and which, freely imported, would at once increase the demand for labour, and supply abundance of food to the half-starved multitudes.
"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.
"And while we praise the working classes of. our own immediate neighbourhood, let us also do justice to the other classes of our community. Never on any occasion have we observed more sympathy with the distressed, greater allowance for their breach of the law, or greater desire to see them restored to the comfort to be derived from receiving the due reward of their labour. We do not approve of all the acts of the magistracy. We think they have put forth declarations which can be justified only by the hurry and excitement of the moment. But be it remembered that the sound of a soldier's musket has not been heard within twenty miles of Manchester. Let this be remembered in connection with the reckless use of the military force in 1817 and 1819, and the middle class, and the partly popularly-nominated magistracy of to-day, will stand in advantageous contrast with the Hays and the Hultons of former days.
