Corn Law League, whose offices were in Manchester. But however these things may be, the result was to cut off O'Connor and his following from the fierce democracy of the West Riding and Lancashire, which had hitherto been his whole-hearted support. It left the field free for the Anti-Corn Law agitators, and left them in triumphant possession. It did little to open up new areas of propaganda. But for the rest of Chartist history the centre of interest becomes once again the South, and the South was so little converted that the net result could only be regarded as loss.
Rather more than a year after the removal of the Executive to London, the southward trend was further emphasised by the transference to the capital of the Northern Star, the one supremely successful journalistic venture of the Chartist movement. Even the Northern Star had suffered from the lethargy which in 1843 and 1844 had fallen upon every aspect of Chartism. It lost its editor when Hill quarrelled with O'Connor and threw up his post in disgust. It fell off seriously both in circulation and influence. In the palmy days between 1839 and 1842 the Star had been not only the oracle of northern industrial discontent, but a veritable gold-mine to its proprietor, and the source of the lavish subventions with which he sustained the tottering finances of the cause. But the greatest prosperity of the Star had been in the early days of its identification with Chartism. Founded in 1837 before the Charter had been devised, it was not before 1839 that it had grown into the position of the leading Chartist organ. It was in the great year 1839 that the Star had attained the highest point of its prosperity. But after the great year 1839 the sales of the Star had steadily declined. Even in 1840 it had only half the circulation of the previous year: each succeeding year was marked by a further drop, and by the summer of 1843 the state of affairs was becoming critical.[1] It was the logical consequence of the establishment of the Executive in London in 1843 that the organ of the party should follow on the same road. Accordingly in the autumn of 1844 the office of the paper was transferred from Leeds to London. Specious reasons for the change were given. The Star was not
- ↑ In 1839 it was said that the Star sold 35,559 copies a week. But compare above, p. 173, note 1, for an even more extravagant estimate for part of that year. The returns of the stamps issued show that its average weekly circulation in 1840 was 18,780, in 1841, 13,580, and in 1842, 12,500 (Parliamentary Papers, 1843, xxx. 544). In 1843 the circulation from July to September averaged 9700, and from October to December 9000 a week (Ibid., 1844, xxxii. 419).
