forces in 1842 may be gauged from the fact that in the Parliamentary Session of that year 2881 petitions, signed by 1,570,000 persons, were presented; and this was repeated year after year.
When the revival came the Chartists took up with vigour the task of counteracting the Free Trade Campaign. By debates, polemics, and the smashing of meetings they carried on for three years the hopeless struggle, until in August 1844 a personal meeting between O'Connor and Cobden destroyed the Chartist case and ended the feud.[1] The Chartist arguments against the rival agitation were derived largely from James O'Brien. It was detested as a middle-class movement, started to suit the interests of the manufacturers—a charge to which Cobden pleaded guilty. The repeal of the Corn Laws would simply hand over the working class to the manufacturers and money-lords. The ruin of agriculture, which was inevitable if the laws were repealed, would drive thousands of agricultural labourers to the towns, there to compete and reduce wages. High prices meant high wages, they argued; therefore, if the manufacturers cried "cheap bread" they meant "cheap labour." Furthermore, if prices were so reduced, the chief benefit would go to those who lived upon fixed incomes—the "tax-eaters," fund-holders, clergy, and sinecurists. The reduction in prices would be equivalent to an enormous increase in the National Debt, and thus benefit the public creditor at the expense of the labourer who has to pay the taxes. Unless, therefore, as O'Brien argued, there were some readjustment of the currency and of contracts for debt, the result of the repeal of the Corn Laws would be disastrous to the industrious classes.
These were the theoretical grounds of opposition. There were other reasons, too, which appealed to Chartists. Some few, like James Leach and West of Macclesfield, were convinced Protectionists, and tried to answer the Free Traders with arguments in kind. Other Chartists regarded the Anti-Corn Law League as an insidious middle-class attack upon their own agitation, as a movement deliberately devised to turn attention
- ↑ They debated at Northampton on August 5, 1844. O'Connor's case was so feebly stated as to set rumours circulating among his own followers to the effect that he had been bribed to allow Cobden to enjoy a stage victory. O'Connor's own account in the Northern Star, August 10, has the merit of including a generous testimony to Cobden's ability. "He is decidedly a man of genius, of reflection, of talent, and of tact. … He has a most happy facility of turning the most trivial passing occurrence to the most important purpose. I am not astonished that a wily party should have selected so apt and cunning a leader." Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, p. 255, says that the debate was the greatest victory ever won by the League over the Charter.
