A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



years to attain the substantial profits which were finally made, but the effect 



of success was astonishing : 



The store was talked of in the mills. It was canvassed in the weaving shed. The farm 

 labourer heard of it in the fields. The coal miner carried the news down the pit. The 

 blacksmith circulated the news at his forge. Chartists . . . took the store into considera- 

 tion in their Societies . . . and thus it spread far and wide that the shrewd men of Roch- 

 dale were doing a notable thing in the w.iv of co-operation.*** 



The following table shows at a glance the enormous strides made by the 

 society between the years 1844 and 1876 at Rochdale."' 



Meanwhile the depression in wages, the high price of foodstuffs and 

 the want of employment were bringing matters in Lancashire to a social 

 crisis. By the end of the thirties 22,000 handloom weavers again petitioned 

 Parhament (1838) for relief. They prayed for the repeal of the Corn Laws 

 of 1828, which prescribed a duty of 36/. 8^. when corn was at 50J. a 

 quarter, decreasing to i6s. 8d. at 68/. and to is. at 73J., but increasing in 

 inverse ratio with the fall in price. The demand for the repeal of the Corn 

 Laws was no new suggestion. In the examination of witnesses before the 

 committee of 1833 it was stated in reply to a question as to how relief could 

 best be afforded, that ' a very material rehef,' would be ' a repeal of the Corn 

 Laws . . . We want nothing else.' *^° 



Owing to the dense population of Manchester and other large towns in 

 Lancashire, the food question was fast becoming a most crucial problem. To 

 enable more united pressure to be brought to bear, the famous Anti-Corn Law 

 League was started in 1839, composed of delegates from many towns, the 

 central office of the league remaining in Manchester. Circulars were issued 

 and meetings called and great efforts were made to nationalize the movement. 

 The first half of the forties were, as is well known, occupied with the great 

 struggle against that most powerful of all monopolies the land monopoly. 

 The landlords were bitterly opposed to any change, though the agricultural 

 distress seemed in no whit assisted by the maintenance of the tax. Amongst the 

 prominent promoters of the cause in the north were Mr. Cobden, the member 

 for Stockport, and Mr. John Bright. In the parliamentary debate of May, 

 1843, the former pointed out the iniquity of maintaining a law having for its' 

 object to inflict scarcity upon the people, and this, not in the interest of the 

 farmer or of the agricultural labourer, but of the landlord. All the Corn Laws 

 from 1 8 1 5 to 1 841 had not prevented agricultural distress, but they had fostered 

 terrible distress among the large working populations of the north. In 1842 

 money was voted rapidly and lavishly for the furthering of the agitation, and 



"' Hist, of Co-operation, ii, 43. 



'"^ Rep. of Select Com. on Manuf. &c. 567. 



318 



Ibid. 45. 



