Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 2 E-Book

John Bright

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 831

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

John Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman and one of the greatest orators of his generation. From 1868 to 1871 he was President of the Board of Trade and heavily promoted free trade policies. His speeches are nothing less than legendary. This is volume two out of two, covering his speeches on Reform and other miscellaneous topics.

Leseprobe

Speeches on Questionsof Public Policy

Volume 2

JOHN BRIGHT

Speeches on questions of public policy 2, J. Bright

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849649937

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

[email protected]

CONTENTS:

REFORM.1

REFORM. I.1

REFORM. II.19

REFORM. III.34

REFORM. IV.51

REFORM. V.65

REFORM. VI.82

REFORM. VII.94

REFORM. VIII.116

REFORM. IX.125

REFORM. X.133

REFORM. XI.141

REFORM. XII.150

REFORM. XIII.157

SPEECHES ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS.168

FREE TRADE.168

BURDENS ON LAND.177

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.186

GAME LAWS.194

THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND.204

PEACE.221

FOREIGN POLICY.229

FINANCIAL POLICY.246

TAX BILLS.257

PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.274

THE PERMISSIVE BILL.284

ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL.290

ADMISSION OF JEWS TO PARLIAMENT.300

THE GOVERNMENT SCHEME OE EDUCATION.306

CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL.316

REFORM.

 

REFORM. I.

BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 27, 1858.

[In the autumn of the year 1858, Mr. Bright, having recovered from a serious illness which had compelled his absence from the House of Commons during the sessions of 1856 and 1857, visited some of the principal towns in Great Britain, and made several important speeches on Parliamentary Reform. In the spring of the next year Lord Derby introduced his scheme. It was rejected, and a dissolution followed, which put Lord Palmerston at the head of affairs. During his life the question slept. On Lord Russell's accession to office in the latter part of the year 1865 the question was revived, and the Bill of 1866 was produced. This was lost, through a coalition of the Tories and the ' Adullamites,' and Lord Derby came into office again. In 1867 a Reform Bill was carried.]

If I exhibit embarrassment in rising to address you, I must ask for your forbearance, for, in truth, as I cast my eyes over this great assembly, I feel myself almost bewildered and oppressed with a consciousness of my incapacity to fulfil properly the duty which devolves upon me to-night. It is now nearly three years since I was permitted, and, indeed, since I was able, to stand upon any public platform to address any public meeting of my countrymen; and during that period I have passed through a new and a great experience. From apparent health I have been brought down to a condition of weakness exceeding the weakness of a little child, in which I could neither read nor write, nor converse for more than a few minutes without distress and without peril; and from that condition, by degrees so fine as to be imperceptible even to myself, I have been restored to the comparative health in which you now behold me. In remembrance of all this, is it wrong in me to acknowledge here, in the presence of you all, with reverent and thankful heart, the signal favor which has been extended to me by the great Supreme? Is it wrong that I should take this opportunity of expressing the gratitude which I feel to all classes of my countrymen for the numberless kindnesses which I have received from them during this period — from those high in rank and abounding in wealth and influence, to the dweller on one of our Lancashire moors, who sent me a most kind message to say that he believed where he lived was the healthiest spot in England, and that if I would come and take up my abode with him for a time, though his means were limited and his dwelling humble, he would contrive to let me have a room to myself? I say, looking back to all this, that if I have ever done anything for my countrymen, or for their interests in any shape, I am amply compensated by the abundant kindness they have shown to me during the last three years. And if there be any color of shade to this picture, if there be men who subjected me to a passionate and ungenerous treatment, when I was stricken down and was enduring a tedious exile, though the best years of my life were engaged in the defence of their interests, I have the consolation of knowing that their act was not approved by the country, and that when my cause came up, by appeal, to a superior, because an impartial tribunal, their verdict was condemned and set aside by the unanimous judgment of the electors and population of this great central city of the kingdom.

I shall not attempt, by the employment of any elaborate phrases, to express to you what I felt at the time when you conferred upon me the signal honor of returning me as one of your representatives to the House of Commons. I am not sufficiently master of the English language to discover words which shall express what I then felt, and what I feel now towards you, for what you did then, and for the reception which you have given me to-night. I never imagined for a moment that you were prepared to endorse all my opinions, or to sanction every political act with which I have been connected; but I accepted your resolution in choosing me as meaning this, that you had watched my political career; that you believed it had been an honest one; that you were satisfied I had not swerved knowingly to the right hand or to the left; that the attractions of power had not turned me aside; that I had not changed my course from any view of courting a fleeting popularity; and, further, that you are of this opinion — an opinion which I religiously hold — that the man whose political career is on a line with his conscientious convictions, can never be unfaithful to his constituents or to his country.

At the time of my election, you will remember that some newspapers which commented upon it, took the liberty of saying that I had had a good deal of time for reflection; that I had been taught a wholesome lesson; and that I had changed or modified my views with respect to recent public policy. I have had no proper opportunity before to-night to refer to that statement, and I beg leave to tell those gentlemen that they were, and are, if they still hold the same opinion, entirely mistaken; that whether I was wrong or right, I acted according to what I believed to be right, and that all the facts and all the information which I have since received have only served to confirm me in the opinions which I had previously expressed. I wish now, too — and all this is rather preliminary — to refer to one ingenious misrepresentation, which it was of no use attempting to meet when passion was at its height, and when public clamour prevented any calm argument upon the question then before the country. All who read the newspapers at the time will recollect that it was said of me, and of others who thought and acted with me — but more of me than of any other person — that my opinion upon such a question as the right or wisdom of any particular war in which the country might be engaged was, after all, of no kind of value, because whatever was the war, whatever were the circumstances, I should have taken exactly the same com-se, and therefore that argument upon a particular war was of no avail, and was totally unnecessary. Now I beg leave to say that this was a misrepresentation which no person had a right to make.

I shall not trouble you more than a moment or two on this point; but permit me to say that the first time I spoke in the House of Commons on the subject of the Russian war, was on the 31st of March, 1854, when a message from the Crown came down announcing that the calamity of war was about to befall the country. In the very opening of my speech were these short sentences, which, if you will allow me, I will read to you. I said: — 'I shall not discuss this question on the abstract principle of peace at all price, as it is termed, which is held by a small minority of persons in this country, founded on religious opinions which are not generally received; but I shall discuss it entirely on principles that are held unanimously by the Members of this House. When we are deliberating on the question of war, and endeavoring to prove its justice or necessity, it becomes us to show that the interests of the country are clearly involved; that the objects for which the war is about to be undertaken are probable, or, at least, possible of attainment, and that the end proposed to be accomplished is worth the cost and the sacrifices which we are about to incur.'' And I went on to say that I hoped if a noble Lord, who was then a Member of the Government, rose to make any reply to my observations, he would not run away from the subject before the House, but would meet me fairly as having discussed the question in that way, and that way only. Well, I now tell you, what it ought not to be ' necessary to say, that from that time until the time when I last spoke on the subject of the Russian war, I confined myself entirely to those points; my facts, my arguments, and my case were drawn from the despatches and Blue Books which the Government for their justification laid before Parliament; and therefore, I repeat, it was not open to anyone who opposed me to oppose me on the ground that my opinion on the Russian war was worth nothing, because whatever might have been the cause of war, I should have held exactly the same language.

Now, after all is over except the tax-gatherer, and the sorrows of those who have lost their friends in the war, I will just in one sentence say that I am still unable to discover what compensation England has for the hundred millions of money she expended, or what compensation Europe has for the three hundred millions squandered by all the parties engaged in that frightful contest. It is not easy to say how much; but of this we may be sure, that the squandering of £300,000,000 sterling by the nations of Europe in that struggle has had a great influence on the enhanced price of money during the last few years, and greatly aggravated the pressure of the panic through which we passed twelve months ago. The 40,000 lives which we lost in the Russian war some persons hold cheap; I do not. I think that the grown men of Birmingham from eighteen years of age to fifty (and there are, probably, not more than 40,000 of them) are something worth looking at by the statesman and the Christian; and I say that the 400,000 lives which were lost to Europe deserved to be considered before we rushed blindly into a war with Russia. For myself, therefore, all I wish to point out to you is this, that the man who hesitates before he squanders so much blood and so much treasure has at least a right to be received with a moderate amount of tolerance and forbearance.

I shall say no more now on this subject, for I intend to take an early opportunity of going into the general question of foreign policy at a greater length than would be proper this evening.

I am afraid to say how many persons I now see before me who are by the present constitution of this country shut out from any participation in political power. I shall take this opportunity of discussing, and, as far as I am able, with brevity and distinctness, what I think we ought to aim at this moment, when the great question of Parliamentary Reform is before the country. I think we may fairly say that that question occupies now something like a triumphant position, and at the same time a position of great peril — triumphant, inasmuch as it has now no open enemies — perilous, inasmuch as, for the moment, it is taken up by those who, up to this hour, have been, for the most part, the uncompromising opponents of Reform. We have had four Governments pledged to Parliamentary Reform within the last few years. Lord J. Russell, as Prime Minister, introduced a Reform Bill, and afterwards, in the Government of Lord Aberdeen, Lord J. Russell introduced another Reform Bill, and the least said of these two Bills, especially of the latter, the better. The Government which has recently been overthrown pledged itself to the country and the House of Commons to bring in a Reform Bill, but at the time when it came to an unexpected, but a not undeserved end, no Bill had been prepared, so that we knew nothing of the particulars of which it was to be composed. We have now a Government under the chieftainship of Lord Derby, who, during his short term of office in 1852, stated, if I remember right, that one of the chief objects of his Government would be to stem the tide of democracy. Now, it may be that Lord Derby has entirely changed his mind, that he is as much converted to Parliamentary Reform as Sir R. Peel, in 1856, was converted to Corn-law repeal. If he is so converted, then our question may be in good hands, but if he is not (and he has never yet acknowledged his conversion), then I think it is but reasonable of us to view his course with some suspicion, and to look upon the position of the question in his hands with some alarm. All parties now pretend to be in love with the question of Reform, but still they do not tell us much about it. They remind me, in the few speeches which they have made upon the question, of the condition of that deplorable Atlantic cable, of which I read the other day in the newspapers, that ' the currents were visible, but the signals were wholly indistinct.'

But having admitted that Parliamentary Reform is necessary, they thereby admit that the present House of Commons does not satisfactorily represent the nation, and it is one step in advance to receive that admission from all those persons, from among whom it has hitherto been supposed that Governments could alone be formed in this country. Now, I do not believe that the Parliament, as at present constituted, does fairly represent the nation, and I think it is capable of most distinct proof that it does not. Before I proceed to figures, I will mention one or two general proofs of that assertion. In the year 1846, when the great question of the repeal of the Corn-laws was under discussion, it required something like an earthquake to obtain for the people the right to buy their bread in the world's markets; it required a famine in Ireland, which from 1845 to 1851 lessened the population of that country by 3,000,000; it required the conversion of a great Minister, the break-up of a great party, the ' endangering of the Constitution,' and all those mysterious evils which official statesmen discovered when the poor artisan of Birmingham or Manchester, or the poor half-starved farm-laborer, asked this only, that where bread could be had best and cheapest in return for his labor, he might be permitted to buy it. But coming down to 1852, when Lord Derby was in office, he dissolved the Parliament, and the great question proposed to the constituencies was Protection. Parliament re-assembled and Protection and Lord Derby were defeated by a majority of nineteen; but when you had only a majority of nineteen in the House of Commons against the re-establishment of Protection, nine teen-twentieths of the people of England were determined that they never would have anything of the sort again.

Take again the questions which affect the Established Church. Probably many persons in this meeting are not aware that, according to the return of the Registrar-General, only one-third of the people of this country have any connection with the Established Church. In Scotland, one-third only of the population are connected with the Establishment; in Ireland, five out of six, in Wales, eight out of ten, have no connection at all with it. And yet the Established Church is paramount in both Houses. If the House of Commons fairly represented all the people of the United Kingdom, the Established Church (it is as a political institution that I speak of it, I say nothing of it as a religious institution) would be much more modest, and we should probably get some changes much more readily than we have ever got any before.

Again, you are aware, probably, that up to 1853, if a man received landed property by inheritance, if it were left to him by will, or came to him as heir-at-law, it paid no legacy-duty — I speak of freehold property. In 1853, Mr. Gladstone, by an effort which was considered superhuman, prevailed upon the House of Commons to pass a law to impose a succession-tax, as it was called, or a legacy-duty on real property. I will tell you how they did it. You know that if a man in Birmingham comes into possession of leasehold houses, or machinery, or shares in the North-Western Railway, or shipping, or any other property not called real property — though, by the way, when a man gets hold of it, it is surprising how real he finds it — if he be no relation to the person who left it to him, he has to pay a legacy-duty of ten per cent., and a different degree of percentage according to the degree of relationship in which he may stand to the testator. In the case of land — the best of all property, with regard to its durability and certainty, for a man to have left to him or to possess — the law is of a different kind. A friend of mine, a Member of the House of Commons, was fortunate enough to have left to him by a person who was in no way related to him a landed estate of about 700l. a-year. This was worth in the market thirty years' purchase, or 21,000l. There was timber on the estate to the value of 11,000l., which, added to 21,000l, made the whole bequest 32,000l. If it had been leasehold houses, or stock-in-trade, or machinery, or shares, or shipping, or in the funds, my friend would have had to pay 10l. per cent, on it, that is to say 3,200l. But what did he pay? The calculation was this: — My friend is of a certain age — I do not know what, and it is not material; the tax-gatherer or the people at Somerset House look into a table, which shows the probable length of life of a man of that particular age, and instead of paying 10l. per cent, on 32,000l., he is taxed upon the annual income of the estate multiplied by the number of years which according to the tables he may be expected to live. It ended in this way, that instead of paying 3,200l. to the State, to bear your burdens and to pay for your wars, he paid 700 l., or rather less than one-quarter of that sum. Do you think that if the House of Commons fairly represented the lawyers, merchants, manufacturers, shopkeepers, artisans, and all the rest of the population, such an Act as that could have passed that House, or that if it had existed it could continue to exist for a single session?

I could show you inequalities as great and scandalous in the manner in which the income-tax, so grievously felt by owners of certain property in Birmingham, is imposed and presses upon the owners of the soil and those engaged in professions and trades chiefly carried on in towns, but I will not enter into that matter. Your own experience must have shown you how unequal that tax is. You know how entirely every Government has swept aside all proposals to make it more equal and just.

And now we come to the question of figures. I think it is very easy to show that if the present House of Commons represented equitably or even honestly the population of the country, figures would be of no avail in this discussion; but the figures prove conclusively that such is not the case. I will not trouble you with a heap of statistics which you cannot remember, but will give you as a proof one or two cases. Take the greatest county in England. Yorkshire shows you an existing inequality which is absolutely fatal to all fair representation. There are in Yorkshire lo small boroughs which return to Parliament 16 Members — there are other 8 boroughs in Yorkshire whose Members altogether are 14. Now, the 10 boroughs returning the 16 Members have not more than a population of 80,000, while the 8 boroughs with the 14 Members have a population of 620,000. Now, whether you take the amount of population, the number of houses, the sum at which they are rated to the income-tax, or the number of electors, the proportion is in the same way, — the large boroughs with the smaller number of Members have seven times the population, seven times the number of houses, seven times the amount of income-tax to pay, and seven times the number of electors. I must ask your attention to one other comparison, and it relates to your own town. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, you know, represents the county of Bucks. That county has a population of 164,000, which is not much more than half the population of Birmingham, and yet, Bucks with its boroughs has not less than II Members in the House of Commons. 164,000 persons in Bucks return 11 Members, while Birmingham, with not less than 250,000, and probably much more, only returns 2 Members. I will give you another illustration, which refers to your own town. In Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Wiltshire there are 22 boroughs, which return 34 Members to Parliament. Compare the population and political power of those 22 boroughs, returning 34 Members to Parliament, with the population and political power of Birmingham. You have nearly twice the population, but you have only 2 Members to represent you in Parliament.

I could furnish you with pages of illustrations of this kind to show you that our whole system of representation is unequal and dishonest. But one more proof only, and then I will quit the figures, for I think the case will be sufficiently clear. There are in the House of Commons at present 330 Members (more than half the House) whose whole number of constituents do not amount to more than 180,000, and there are at the same time in Parliament 24 Members whose constituents are upwards of 200,000 in number, and, while the constituents of 330 Members are assessed to the property-tax at 15,000,000 l., the constituents of the 24 Members are assessed to the same tax at more than 24,000,000 l. There is, besides, this great significant fact, that wherever you go in Great Britain or Ireland, five out of every six men you meet have no vote. The Reform Bill, which I am not about to depreciate, since I know what it cost to get it, and I know something of what it has done — was so drawn as purposely to exclude from the list of electors the great body of the working classes of this kingdom. But supposing that out of the 6,000,000 of grown-up men in the United Kingdom 1,000,000 had the suffrage, as is now the case, and supposing that 1,000,000 returned the House of Commons by a fair distribution of Members according to numbers, there would, in all probability, be a fair representation of the opinions of the 6,000,000, because the opinions of the 1,000,000 would to a considerable extent reflect and represent the opinions of their fellow-countrymen. But that is not the case. The law has selected 1,000,000 to be the electors of Members of Parliament, but, having got that 1,000,000, it has contrived — partly by accident it may be, but very much by intention — that the political power of the majority of that 1,000,000 is frittered away, is fraudulently disposed of and destroyed by the manner in which Members are distributed among the 1,000,000 electors composing the electoral body. Now, I wish to ask this meeting — and let us try to take a judicial and dispassionate view of the question when we talk of Reform — What is it that we really want? I hold it to be this — that we want to substitute a real and honest representation of the people for that fraudulent thing which we call a representation now.

But there is a very serious question to be decided before we can almost take a step. When you are about to reform the House of Commons, are your eyes to be turned to the House of Peers, or to the great body of the nation? The House of Peers, as you know, does not travel very fast — even what is called a Parliamentary train is too fast for its nerves; in fact, it never travels at all unless somebody shoves it. If any man proposes to reform the House of Commons just so much as and no more than will allow it to keep pace with the wishes of the House of Lords, I would ask him not to take any trouble in the matter, but just to leave it exactly where it is. If you want it to represent the nation, then it is another question; and, having come to that conclusion, if we have come to it, there is no great mystery, I think, as to the manner in which it can be brought about. The question between the Peers and the people is one which cannot be evaded. It is the great difficulty in the way of our friends at head-quarters who are for Reform, but do not know how to meet it. It was the difficulty which Lord John Russell felt. Lord John Russell — I believe you may take my word for it — has probably, from association, from tradition, from his own reading and study, and from his own just and honest sympathies, a more friendly feeling towards this question of Parliamentary Reform than any other man of his order as a statesman. But, having said this, I must also say — what he, too, would say if he thought it prudent to tell all he knew — that this is the great difficulty with him — How can I reconcile a free representation of the people in the House of Commons with the inevitable disposition which rests in a hereditary House of Peers? Now, we must decide this question. Choose you this day whom you will serve. If the Peers are to be your masters, as they boast that their ancestors were the conquerors of yours, serve them. But if you will serve only the laws, the laws of your country, the laws in making which you have been consulted, you may go on straight to discuss this great question of Parliamentary Reform.

I am not going to attack the House of Lords. Some people tell us that the House of Lords has in its time done great things for freedom. It may be so, though I have not been so successful in finding out how or when as some people have been. At least since 1690, or thereabouts, when the Peers became the dominant power in this country, I am scarcely able to discover one single measure important to human or English freedom which has come from the voluntary consent and goodwill of their House. And, really, how should it? You know what a Peer is. He is one of those fortunate individuals who are described as coming into the world ' with a silver spoon in their mouths.' Or, to use the more polished and elaborate phraseology of the poet, it may be said of him —

' Fortune came smiling to his youth and woo'd it,

And purpled greatness met his ripened years.'

When he is a boy, among his brothers and sisters he is pre-eminent: he is the eldest son; he will be ' My Lord;' this fine mansion, this beautiful park, these countless farms, this vast political influence, will one day center on this innocent boy. The servants know it, and pay him greater deference on account of it. He grows up and goes to school and college; his future position is known; he has no great incitement to work hard, because whatever he does it is very difficult for him to improve his fortune in any way. When he leaves College, he has a secure position ready-made for him, and there seems to be no reason why he should follow ardently any of those occupations which make men great among their fellow-men. He takes his seat in the House of Peers; whatever be his character, whatever his intellect, whatever his previous life, whether he be in England or ten thousand miles away, be he tottering down the steep of age, or be he passing through the imbecility of second childhood, yet by means of that charming contrivance — made only for Peers — vote by proxy, he gives his vote for or against, and, unfortunately, too often against, all those great measures on which you and the country have set your hearts. There is another kind of Peer which I am afraid to touch upon — that creature of — what shall I say? — of monstrous, nay, even of adulterous birth — the spiritual Peer. I assure you with the utmost frankness and sincerity that it is not in the nature of things that men in these positions should become willing fountains from which can flow great things for the freedom of any country. We are always told that the Peers are necessary as a check. If that is so' I must say they answer their purpose admirably.

But when we come to consider the question of a reform of the House of Commons, which the Constitution does not recognise as the House of Commons belonging to the Peers, but to the nation, we will allow the House of Peers to go for awhile into something like obscurity, and discuss it as if our sole object were to make it what the Constitution supposes it to be — a complete representation of the people in Parliament. With regard to the question of the Suffrage, which is one of the chief points on which I should insist, I have no doubt there are persons who, on reading my speech, will say, ' Subversive doctrine, violent language this. The change which you propose would endanger many things which we highly value.' Now, I beg to assure all those timid people that I do ,not wish to endanger or to move any of the ancient landmarks of our Constitution. I do not want to disturb this question of the franchise beyond what has been already sanctioned by Parliament and the country. I do not want to introduce any new principle or theoretical opinion which it may be found difficult to adopt. There are many men probably among those whom I see before me who are of opinion that every man should have a vote. They are for what is called ' universal suffrage ' or ' manhood suffrage' — something which means that every man of twenty-one years of age who has not forfeited his right by any misconduct, should have a vote. Let me say that, personally, I have not the smallest objection to the widest possible suffrage that the ingenuity of man can devise. At the same time, if I were now a member of a Government, and had to arrange a Reform Bill for next session, I should not act upon that principle. I will tell you upon what principle I would act. I find in the country great diversities of opinion. There are the Peers, of whom I have already spoken. They are citizens with ourselves, and have therefore a right to be considered. There are the rich and influential classes, who, as wealthy men are generally found to be, are a little timid of the great bulk of the people who have not many riches. There are thousands — scores of thousands — who imagine that they could not sleep safely in their beds if every man had a vote. We are surprised that children sometimes cannot sleep in the dark — that they fancy something dreadful will happen to them, and there are actually rich people in this country who believe that if every man had a vote it would give him a weapon wherewith to attack their property. There being all these diversities of opinion, it clearly is the duty of Government, and of Parliament too, to frame a measure which shall fairly represent what may be called the Reform opinion of the whole country. What have we at present in the way of franchises? We have the parish franchise. For generations' for ages past' there has been an extensive franchise in all our parishes. We have poor-law unions which have worked' on the whole' satisfactorily to the country. We have a franchise in our poor-law unions. We have a corporation franchise, and that franchise may be said to have worked to the satisfaction of the country. I will ask any man here whether he believes that in all the parishes, all the poor-law unions, and all the corporations, men have not conducted themselves with great propriety, and managed the affairs of their parishes, unions, and corporations satisfactorily? And I should like to ask him whether he would object to have the same fi-anchise conferred upon them for the election of Members to the House of Commons. There is one great point gained in such a franchise — your registration would be easy and inexpensive. There is another point — that whatever its omissions, whatever its exclusions, they would not be directed against any one particular class. It would admit the working people to electoral power just as fully as it would admit the middle, or what may be called the higher and richer classes. Therefore, as regards class and class, it would remove a great defect of the Reform Bill, and would give a suffrage so wide that I believe no one would suppose it did not afford a fair representation of all classes. I do not want anybodj' for a moment to suppose that this particular franchise is better than manhood suffrage. I am only speaking of what Government might do, of what it ought to do, and of what it might do, moreover, in accordance with the vast majority of opinion which exists in this country on this question.

With regard to the counties I shall say little. I know no good reason why the franchise should not be as extensive there as in the boroughs; but there appears to be a general understanding that the next step in counties shall be one short of that. But I think it is of great importance that the 405. franchise should be extended to all parts of the United Kingdom as fully as it is to the people of England and Wales.

I now come to the question which I believe all persons who have studied the matter will readily agree is one of great importance to the country — how your Members sHall be allotted to the various constituent bodies. I will ask you this simple question. What is the obvious rule which would recommend itself to every man when first about to arrange this allotment? Would he not argue in this way? The law has given certain persons the right of voting, and it presumes that every person who has that right is capable of deciding how he shall vote. Every elector, therefore, is of the same importance in the eye of the law, and why then should not every elector vote for the same portion of the whole Parliament? I shall be told that I am not to go to the United States for an illustration of this. I will not. I will go a little nearer home. Take the kingdom of Sardinia. I was in Turin last year, and I made inquiries as to the mode of election and the distribution of Members there: and I found that Genoa, with a population of 140,000, returned seven Members to the Sardinian Parliament. Sardinia is not a Republic, it is a limited Monarchy like our own. Let us go to the colonies of Australia. Take New South Wales. The capital — Sydney — returns eight Members to the New South Wales Parliament. In Victoria, the city of Melborne returns thirteen Members to Parliament, and by the Bill now introduced by the Ministry of that colony, the number thirteen is about to be increased to eighteen. I believe that in Belgium and in Canada, both countries under a limited Monarchy, the same rule applies, and we know that throughout the whole of the United States, the number of Members is allotted according to the population, and that once in every ten years this scale is rearranged; in fact, it works itself.

I do not for a moment argue that it is necessary that we should get an actuary to apportion the number of Members exactly according to his calculations of the number of the population, but we have a fair right to an honest approximation' and without it there can be no fair representation of the people. Look at London' putting aside the City. If you were to divide the six boroughs of which the metropolis is made up' you would still have 12 boroughs with 300,000 population each (larger than the population of Birmingham)' and constituencies of 10,000. Divide them again, and you would have 24 boroughs, each of 150,000 population, with 5000 electors; and when the franchise is extended, the number will be still greater. I say that the metropolitan boroughs and all large boroughs ought to be divided, or subdivided; they ought to have double, or treble, or quadruple their present number of Members. What a miserable delusion it is that this great capital of your midland industry, with its 250,000 or 300,000 inhabitants, sends only two Members to the House of Commons! But if every man I see here before me had a vote, or if every man outside had a vote, how will he be better off if he sends only two Members to the House of Commons, while some boroughs of 10,000 inhabitants, equal to one of the small corners of your city, have a right to return the same number? The whole thing, as at present arranged, is a disgraceful fraud. It ought to be put an end to, and, if it is not put an end to, your representation will remain for the future very little better than a farce.

If you look at the county seats you will find that the object of the present Government, and, in fact, of any Government in which the aristocracy has so great a power, and where landowners are so predominant, must be to greatly increase the number of Members for counties in the distribution of seats. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is a very ingenious gentleman. At this very moment in all probability he has got before him rows of figures which he hopes may enable him to prove that the proper way of reforming' Parliament is to increase the number of landed gentry in the House of Commons. I -recollect, on one occasion' that he referred to the county of Chester' and showed that there were three boroughs in that county which returned six Members' while the two divisions of the county only returned four, and that the four Members represented far more electors and population than the six Members of the towns. Now, it will be unfortunate for the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he ventures upon the ground of arithmetic in connection with this question. We are for arithmetic in connection with Reform, and if he proposes to deal with it in that way, we have no objection to carry out the principle fully.

But now let me turn your attention once more to the House of Peers. You know that the House of Peers is a body composed entirely of landowners, with the exception of a few lawyers and a few successful soldiers. Have you ever been to the botanical gardens in some of our towns, where a board is put up with the words, 'No dogs admitted here'? There is a similar board at the door of the House of Peers, though you cannot see it with the outward eye, and it says, 'No traders admitted here.' The House of Peers is a house for the great proprietors of the soil. The county of Chester, to which Mr. Disraeli referred, is very strongly represented in the House of Lords. There are the Marquis of Westminster, Lord Combermere, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and, no doubt, another peer or two, if our acquaintance with them was only a little more extensive. Take Lancashire. We have the Earl of Burlington, now the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Sefton, and the Earl of Wilton. They come up from their great landed properties in Lancashire, and sit in the House of Lords. Let us come to your own county. You have the Earl of Warwick, Lord Leigh, Lord Craven I think. Lord Calthorpe, and one or two others, for in a county so charming as this, there are sure to be many estates and mansions belonging" to the aristocracy of England. The time was when both Houses of Parliament sat together. They meet together now, but in different chambers, under the same roof, and no law can pass, not the smallest modicum of freedom or of justice come to you' until it has gone through the very fine meshes of the net of the House of Lords. Well' then, I say that if the landed proprietors of England insist upon a great addition to their power in the House of Commons, the inhabitants of the towns and the traders of the country will be obliged to ask, 'How is it that we have not our share of power in the House of Lords ?'

Only one word more on the question of distribution of Members. Whenever a Reform Bill is brought into the House of Commons by any Government, be as watchful and exacting as you like on the subject of the franchise, but never, I beg, take your eye for one moment from the question of the distribution of the Members, for in it lies the great subject of dispute, and unless you guard your rights you will have to fight your battle over again, and to begin it the very day after the next Bill has passed.

There is one other point to which I must refer, and it is one upon which I presume I shall have the cordial assent of this meeting. I believe it is the opinion of the great body of the Reformers of the United Kingdom, that any Reform Bill which pretends to be generally satisfactory to Reformers must concede the shelter and protection of the ballot. I shall not discuss that question or argue now in its favor. I am quite sure that in the minds of the electors of England it has long been decided, and it has also been decided in the House of Commons. Those who are for the ballot are for it mainly because they wish free elections. Those who are opposed to it, are opposed to it chiefly because they believe it would liberate the great body of the constituencies from the control and influence of the rich. The Times newspaper and others, but particularly the Times, in discussing this question, treat it as if it were a question to be despised, and tell us that it is mean and unmanly to ask that men should go to the poll. and give -their votes in secret. The very man who writes thus in the Times writes his article in secret, and publishes it in secret, and if any person says that he ought to affix his name to it — which, mind, I do not say at all — what is his answer? He replies, ' I am performing a great public duty; I am obliged, in the discharge of that duty, to comment with great severity upon Ministers and public men, and to expose abuses, and in doing this it is necessary that I should have the shelter of anonymous writing.' Well, I do not dispute that, but if it is wise and just for a writer in the Times to have that shelter in the performance of a public duty, I say it is especially wise and just that the humble elector in every county and every borough should have from the law, if the law can give it, an equal protection in the exercise of his franchise. I believe that when the franchise is thus extended, when the apportionment of Members to the constituencies approximates to a just arrangement, and when you have the protection of the ballot, you will have that kind of representation in the House of Commons which will give to every man who sits there a real constituency, and will fix him with a real responsibility.

I believe there is no country in the world that pretends to regular government where there is less of real responsibility among high officials than there is in England. There is one case which I cannot resist the temptation of citing as an illustration of what I mean. During the Russian war, there were two points on which the interest of Europe was centered; one was Sebastopol, the other the city of Kars. I hope we have not forgotten all the geography we learnt during those calamitous times, for I believe it is the only really valuable thing we got by the war. You recollect that the city of Kars was besieged by the Russians, and that it was defended by Turkish troops, assisted and commanded, I think, by an Englishman — Colonel Williams. You have heard, and I am not at all prepared to dispute it, that Colonel Williams behaved, I do not say with great bravery, for that is common to almost all Englishmen — and, indeed, to the majority of men everywhere — but with great sagacity and prudence, and showed the qualities of a commander. Eventually he was obliged to capitulate, and those who capitulated were treated in the most honorable manner by the Russians, who obtained possession of the town. At that time a nobleman of very high rank — no less a personage than Lord Stratford de Radcliffe — was Ambassador from the Queen of England at the city of the Sultan. He had been there for nearly twenty years. During the siege of Kars Colonel Williams wrote and forwarded 'to Lord Stratford at Constantinople more than sixty letters or despatches with reference to his position, stating how they were worn out with sorties and the attacks of the enemy; how long their provisions and ammunition might last, and urging him to take any steps which might be possible for the purpose of making a diversion in his favor, or of sending relief. All that was proper for Colonel Williams to write and communicate to the Ambassador of the Queen at Constantinople, he did write and communicate; but do you recollect the striking fact that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe did not reply to — did not acknowledge or take the smallest notice of — any one of these sixty or seventy despatches? He treated them as waste paper. He had been years at Constantinople, quarrelling with every European minister there, and bullying the ministers of the Sultan; but when his own countrymen and their allies were shut up in the fortified town of Kars, besieged by a powerful and overwhelming force, driven at length to starvation, and finally to capitulation, this great official treated the whole thing as utterly beneath his notice. Subsequently, Colonel Williams came to England and was made a baronet; Parliament passed an Act granting him a pension of 1000l. a-year, and the Marquis of Lansdowne, one of the Cabinet Ministers of the day, brought him into the House of Commons for his pocket borough of Calne, in Wiltshire. Colonel Williams has never opened his mouth in public in England on the subject of his treatment by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; while that nobleman, who had been guilty of this great neglect — I say this enormous crime — has since taken his seat in the House of Lords, has become a great authority, and has now been sent by the Government on a special mission to Constantinople.

I need not tell you that I was not in favor of any of that Eastern policy, but I presume Lord Stratford was; he was one of the great authors of it, and I say that any man who takes office from his sovereign and his country as he took it, with a salary of 10,000'. a-year, and expenses of almost an equal amount, for the Embassy at Constantinople, is guilty of a scandalous abandonment of the duty he owes to the Queen and to the country if he pays no attention to such letters as those which Lord Stratford received from an officer of the Queen shut up with our allies in Kars. If Lord Stratford had been a Russian noble and had so behaved, before taking his seat in the House of Peers and going on a special mission to Constantinople, he would have had the advantage of being sent on a special mission to Siberia; while if he had been an Ambassador of the United States of America — but I cannot follow out the illustration, because in the United States there is no family influence, there is no power such as that wielded by our great territorial potentates: there is nothing in that country to shield an officer of the State from public reprobation, and therefore I am quite certain that no person deputed from the United States could by any possibility be guilty of the abandonment of duty which was manifested by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. Whenever you get a House of Commons that fairly represents the nation, with a Cabinet that fairly represents the House of Commons — if there be any other Lord Stratford I would not like to predict precisely what will befall him; but I believe that such a man, with such a temper — for it was a question of temper — wall not receive under such circumstances high and continuous employment from the Government of this country. I say we have a right, be it in peace, be it in war, when we employ men in the service of the Crown and of the State, and pay them for their labor, to all their energies and to all their devotion.

This question of Parliamentary Reform, then, is a great and serious question. I want to give a word of warning to those persons who are now engaged, if there be any engaged, in constructing a Reform Bill for the next session. Let them not bring in a delusive and sham measure. Universal suffrage, equal distribution, vote by ballot — any of these points may or may not be perilous; but if there be one thing more distinctly perilous than another to the ruling classes in this country, it is that now, when they are committed to at least a temporary (I wish it were a permanent) settlement of this great question, they should bring forward and pass a Bill which, while it pretends to offer you something great in the way of constitutional freedom, is found immediately after it has passed to be nothing but a delusion and a sham. It will disappoint everybody; it will exasperate all the Reformers; it will render a feeling, which is now not bitter, both bitter and malignant, and within twelve months after the Bill has passed, and the cheat is discovered, we shall be entered in all probability upon another agitation, but an agitation of a very different character fi-om any we have yet seen. Let us have a real Bill, a good Bill, or no Bill at all.

The question at this moment is in the hands of the enemy. We stand the risk of having brought before us what I will describe as ' a country gentlemen's Reform Bill.' The country gentlemen have not been notorious for their sympathies in favor of Reform. We have always been carrying on, for the last thirty years and more, a steady and perpetual war against the predominance and the power of the country gentlemen in Parliament. If we look at their past policy we shall not have much confidence in their proposed measure. Their wars, their debts, their taxes, placed upon the bulk of the people, their stout opposition to the Reform Bill of 1832 — all this leads us greatly to suspect them; and I confess for my own part I wish the question of Reform were in the hands of Reformers— in the hands of men of whose sympathies with respect to it we could not have, from their past lives, the shadow of a doubt. I have great fears that until you have a Ministry in which there are men who are really in favor of Reform, and of an honest Reform, you are not likely to get any such measure as the most moderate among us ought to be in the least satisfied with.

I must warn you against one phrase which I find our friends (we cannot now call any of them our opponents), the bewildered Reformers, are beginning to use. They say we must not on any account ' Americanize ' our institutions. Now, I know only one institution in America of which the Americans need to be very greatly ashamed; and that institution was established under the monarchy, although unfortunately it has lived and flourished under the republic. They tell us in America numbers overwhelm property and education. Well, but numbers have not overwhelmed property and education in England, and yet look at legislation in England. Look at our wars, look at our debt, look at our taxes, look at this great fact — that every improvement of the last forty years has been an improvement which numbers, and numbers only, have wrested from the property, and what they call the education of the country. Our education is fairly represented by our Universities, but I say now, as I have said before, that if the Legislature of England, if the Parliament of England, had been guided for thirty years past according to the counsels of the representatives from the Universities, England, instead of being a country of law and of order, would have been long before this a country of anarchy and of revolution. America is a strange bugbear. There are thirty-two at least, if not thirty-three, independent and sovereign States in the United States of America. Now, I am not one of those who believe that you cannot be free and happy under a monarchy such as ours. I am not proposing — I am the last person to propose — that the institutions of this country should be modelled upon the plan of some other country'-, because it is the plan of some other country; but I say, that if we are at liberty to draw science, products for our manufactures, and literature from every country in the world, why should we not, if we see anything good in the politics of another country, be equally at liberty to take a lesson in that respect also?

Speaking generally, in all the sovereign and independent States of America there is a franchise as wide as that which I have proposed to-night; there is an exact and equal allotment of members to the electors; and there is, throughout most of the States, the protection of the ballot. Yet in America we find law, order, property secure, and a population in the enjoyment of physical comforts and abundance, such as are not known to the great body of the people in this country, and which never have been known in any country in any age of the world before. Will any man dare to tell me, in the presence of this audience, that the English nation in England is a worse nation than the English nation in America? Are we less educated, are we less industrious, are we less moral, are we less subject to the law, are we less disposed to submit to all the just requirements of the Government? If we are so, and if the English nation in America excels us in all these particulars, does it not look very likely that the institutions in England are not as good in the training and rearing of a nation as the institutions in the United States? I do not say that; but those persons who say that the franchise, the distribution, and the ballot, which operate so well in America, would be perilous in England, do what I will not do — they libel the people of this country, and they libel our institutions.

Now, I have a suggestion to make, which I hope somebody will act upon. The Reformers now are more numerous than ever they were before. Why should they not, by some arrangement, have their own Reform Bill; have it introduced into Parliament, and supported with all the strength of this great national party; and if it be a Bill sensibly better than the Bill that is being prepared for us in Downing Street, why should we not, with all the unanimity of which we are capable, by public meetings, by petitions, and, when the proper time comes, by presenting ourselves at the polling-booths, do everything in our power to pass that measure into law. I say that we are great in numbers; that, united, we are great in strength; that we are invincible in the solidity of our arguments; that we are altogether unassailable in the justice of our cause. Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment, be hopeless of our great cause? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such -a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. Am I not in the town of Birmingham — England's central capital; and do not these eyes look upon the sons of those who, not thirty years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base? Not a few of the strong men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they? Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished with you? I see your answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you, you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of freedom to your children. As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with diminished fire; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my countrymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me, be found in your ranks in the impending struggle.

REFORM. II.

MANCHESTER, DECEMBER 10, 1858.

[At the general election in 1857, the Eight Hon. T. Milner Gibson and Mr. Bright were defeated in the contest at Manchester. This speech was delivered at a great meeting in the Free-trade Hall, to which they were invited by their old friends and supporters in the Manchester constituency.]

I CANNOT tell you how much I rejoice in being permitted to meet so large a number of those whom I must describe as my old and dear friends in the Liberal cause. I fear' however, that the reception which you have granted to us to-night, and which you have but at this instant given to me, is calculated in some degree to disturb the balance of the mind, and to interfere with that calm judgment which is demanded by the circumstances under which we are met together, and by the gravity of that great question which is now being discussed in every part of the United Kingdom. I know not whether there be persons who will look upon this meeting in the light of the commemoration of a defeat which we have sustained. To me, it wears far more the aspect of the celebration of some great success. And may we not say that we are successful — that notwithstanding the vicissitudes which wait upon the career of public men' and upon the progress of public questions in a free country ' we find as we look back over a term of years that those beneficent principles which we have so often expounded and defended on this ground, are constantly making progress and obtaining more and more influence on the minds of all our countrymen?

Forty years ago, the spot where we are now assembled became famous. Thousands of the population of Manchester and its neighborhood assembled here — not in this magnificent building, but under the wide canopy of heaven. They met only to plead with the Government and the Parliament of that day, that they might be permitted some share in the government of their country, and that they might be permitted further to possess that natural right which one would think no man would ever deny to another — the right of disposing of the produce of their labor in the open market of the world, in purchase for their daily bread. That meeting was dispersed by the rude arm of military power. The tragedy of that day proved at once the tyranny and brutality of the Government, and the helplessness and humiliation of the people. Now, you have seen a Ministry representing and supported by the political party that committed that iniquity — you have seen such a Ministry voting in the House of Commons in favor of a resolution which declared that the repeal of the Corn-laws had been a great blessing to the country; and after having twenty-six years ago obtained one instalment of Reform, you have now the amazing spectacle of a Ministry representing and supported by that same political party, engaged at this very hour in the arrangement of the clauses of another Bill, which shall still further extend political rights to the great mass of the population of this country. Seeing this, then, who will despair? Since I have been able to think maturely upon public questions, since I have been able and have been permitted to open my mouth in these the open councils of my countrymen, I have never for one moment despaired; and when I look around me' and see this magnificent — I will say this all-powerful — assembly, my hopes, my . faith, all are confirmed, and I gather fresh strength for whatever struggle is before us.