is the man now who will charge us with being the abettors of assassination? and yet the Prime Minister scrupled not to insinuate as much. (Groans and hisses.) Where are the organs of public opinion that would support him to do so now? and above all, where are the people who would believe either him or the press, if they so charged us? (Loud cheers.) It is true that this year we were threatened with an opposition which was to extinguish the League, in the shape of the protection societies? (Laughter.) We may fairly ask, where are they now? (Much laughter.) Hare they accomplished all for which they were established? Have they increased the wages of the labourer? Have they made him satisfied with his 8s. a week, and protection to agriculture? (Cheers and laughter.) Do the incendiary fires of Suffolk show that he is so satisfied? If these societies possess the power which they profess to possess, there never was a field yet in which the leading members of such societies could exercise that power so advantageously as in endeavouring to arrest the fearful spirit which is abroad in that county and check the incendiarism which has been lately exhibited there. (Cheers.) But they could not do it; they have no hold upon the affections of the working clase. The poor labourers know that whatever marriage portions and mortgages may be paid out of the proceeds of the Corn Laws, they have nothing to expect but the greatest penury and want. It will require greater strength than the protection societies possess to put down the discontent which prevails among the working classes. We have gone on from day to day and from year to year gaining strength, sometimes in victory, sometimes in defeat, and we are proceeding now to that great point which must surely end in victory. (Cheers.) This question, under the management of the League, has obtained a position which no other question ever did in the same length of time, and it occupies a position too, which no other question ever did occupy in the public mind, without becoming successful and triumphant."
Mr. Gibson intimated that, while he approved of the course of the League, he was not, indeed, one of those who was very confident as to the result of our present electoral institutions. He was aware that they could not hope for those full and generous fruits which they might have looked for from a more liberal representation of the people; but this he did believe, that the great body of the electors in this country were an intelligent, and, when once awakened, an independent class—that they had the power, and could, if they pleased, return a majority to the
