Page:Item 6 1854.pdf/191

was nearly 3,000, he having polled 8,368, the largest number of any throughout the kingdom. Manchester thus entered a disclaimer to the notion of being the hot-bed of Peace-at-any-price. It was evident that Bright and Gibson did not represent the opinions of Manchester on questions affecting England's foreign policy. Their former constituents now decreed that they would no longer be represented by men, howsoever good in other ways, which brought upon them the ill-name of "The Manchester School". This great defeat of Bright and Gibson at Manchester, together with Cobden's defeat at Huddersfield, was a striking proof of the energy with which English electors were prepared to award retribution to those of their statesmen who with their peace-at-any-price principles would foster the belief abroad that English chivalry was fast becoming absorbed in her greater craving for gold. But this political retribution - just or unjust, as differently viewed - was not wholly confined to Manchester, as shewn by the fact that over forty of those who voted in favour of the motion which threw the Minister overboard, were by the general election thrown overboard themselves. Mr. Cobden, who moved the resolution was without a seat. Mr. Milner Gibson, who seconded the resolution, was without a seat; and many of the loudest and longest-winded orators who declaimed against Ministers shared the same fate. The vote of want of confidence was a two-edged instrument that cut both ways, but one, nevertheless, that gave Lord Palmerston a much larger majority than he had before. In consequence of there being no contest at Hastings, the election was comparatively quiet, but in the boroughs and counties generally - and more particularly in the metropolis - the excitement was such as not to have been present to the memory of the inhabitant, whoever or whatever that patriarchal authority might have been. Thanks to the good genius of Reform, the elections even in '57, were not the slow torture that the fathers and grandfathers of the then electors were subject to. The election contest may be said to have been fast and furious. Writs were sent out to the proper authorities, the electors in many cases, if not already canvassed, were immediately talked to, and the battle at the polls was begun and finished in fewer hours than it occupied days in bygone times. That the electors and non-electors should have taken more than ordinary interest in the election of 1857, was probably due to the spread of political education, and would have thus afforded to some -