e Lord Mayor. We shall want all the co-operation of the Lord Mayor
and the city of London; and I say that this committee, instead of
being a Manchester or Lancashire central committee, should be made a
national committee; that from this should go forth invitations to
all parts of the country, beginning with the lords-lieutenant,
inviting them to be vice-presidents of this committee. Let the noble
Lord continue to be at the head of the general committee--the
national committee--and invite every mayor to take part. We are
going to have new mayors in the course of the week, and, though I am
sorry to lose our present one, yet when new mayors come in, they may
be probably more ready to take up a new undertaking than if they had
just been exhausted with a years labour. Let every mayor in the
kingdom be invited to become a member of this committee. Let
subscription-circulars be despatched to them asking them to organise
a committee in every borough; and let there be a secretary and
honorary secretary employed. Through these bodies you might
communicate information, and counteract those misrepresentations
that have been made with regard to the condition of this district.

You might, if necessary, send an ambassador to some of those more
important places; but better still, if you could induce them to send
some one here to look into the state of things for themselves;
because I am sure if they did, so far from finding the calumnies
that have been uttered against the propertied classes in this county
being well founded, they would find instances--and not a few--of
great liberality and generosity, such as I think would surprise any
one who visited this district from the southern part of the kingdom.

This would only be done by an active effort from the centre here,
and I submit that we shall not be doing justice to this effort
unless we give to the whole country an opportunity of co-operating
in that way, and throw upon every part of the kingdom a share of the
responsibility of this great crisis and emergency. I submit that
there is every motive why this community, as well as the whole
kingdom, should wish to preserve this industrious population in
health and in the possession of their energies. There is every
motive why we should endeavour to keep this working population here
rather than drive them away from here, as you will do if they are
not sufficiently fed and clothed during the next winter. They will
be wanted again if thi