430
MR. COBDEN.
no one has given so much attention to that question as I have done; and I distinctly deny that you have the slightest probability of gaining a numerical majority in this House, if a dissolution took place to-morrow. Now, I would not have said this three months ago. (Hear.) On the contrary, at a public meeting three months ago, I distinctly recognised the great probability of your having a numerical majority in the event of a dissolution. But your party is since broken up. Though you may still have a firm phalanx in Dorsetshire and Buckinghamshire, what has been the effect of the separation from you of the most authoritative and intelligent of your party upon the boroughs, and among the population of the north? I told you, three years ago, that the Conservatives of the towns of the north of England were not the followers of the Duke of Richmond. They were, almost to a man, the followers of that section of the government represented by the first lord of the treasury and the right honourable home secretary. (Hear, hear.) Every one acquainted with the towns in the north of England will bear me out when I say that those conservatives who follow the right honourable baronet (Sir R. Peel) comprise at least four-fifths of the party, while the remainder may look up to the Duke of Richmond as their leader, and sympathise with the section below the gangway. That large portion of .the conservative party in the north of England has ever been in favour of free trade. The language they have used to free-traders like myself has been this: 'Sir Robert will do it at the proper time. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) We have confidence in him; and, when the proper period arrives, he will give us free trade.' (Renewed cheers.) Then I say that, in this state of your party, I wholly deny the possibility of your gaining a majority. But I will assume, for the sake of argument, that, in the event of a dissolution of parliament, you obtained a numerical majority. Let us see of what that majority, and of what the minority opposed to you, would consist. (Hear, hear.) There are 18 representatives in parliament for this metropolis, and there are two members for the metropolitan county. We have the whole 20. (Loud cheers.) They represent 110,000 electors; they represent a population of 2,000,000 of souls—(hear, hear); the most intelligent, the most wealthy, the most orderly, and—notwithstanding my acquaintance with the business habits of those in the north of England—I must add, with respect to business and mechanical life, the hardest working people in England. (Hear, hear.) Do those people express public opinion, think you? Why, this metropolis assumed to itself, centuries ago, the power and privilege of closing its gates in the face of its sovereign,—a power which is still retained, and which is exercised on state occasions. This metropolis is now twenty times as populous, as wealthy, as important in the world's eye, as it was
