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 ORATORY 
 
 SELECTED SPEECHES OF 
 THE RIGHT HON. JOHN 
 BRIGHT, M.P., ON PUBLIC 
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 JOSEPH STURGE
 
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 INTRODUCTION 
 
 John Bright was born at Rochdale in 1811, and he 
 died there in 1889. He came of an old Quaker family, 
 was educated at Quaker schools, and remained to the 
 end of his days a loyal member of the Society of 
 Friends. His father was a cotton manufacturer, and 
 John Bright was himself trained to business at the 
 mills, in which he was all his life a partner. When he 
 was a Privy Councillor, the older hands, who had 
 known him from a boy, still regarded him as one of 
 themselves. When Bright was a young man the whole 
 country was convulsed by the great Reform agitation, 
 and from that time forward he took a keen interest in 
 public affairs. His earliest speeches were in support of 
 temperance, and he soon won repute in the contest 
 against the local church-rate. It is recorded that in 
 1840 his eloquence carried an amendment at a public 
 meeting called for the purpose of levying such a rate. 
 About the same time his sympathy was aroused by the 
 sufferings of the masses of his fellow-countrymen from 
 the stagnation of trade and the high price of food, 
 caused by the incidence of Protection. He spent a 
 large part of his time between 1840 and 1846 in agita- 
 ting, in co-operation with Richard Cobden, for the 
 abolition of the Corn Laws. In 1843 he was elected 
 M.P. for Durham, and in 1847 for Manchester. 
 
 He was a convinced individualist in all things, and 
 held throughout his life that it is unwise, and in many 
 cases oppressive, to restrict the working hours of adults 
 by Act of Parliament, though he was in favour of the 
 legislative protection of children. 
 
 " He was not a philanthropist in the common and 
 rather hackneyed sense of the word. His sympathies 
 
 Vll
 
 viii Introduction 
 
 did not run in that channel. He had not much faith 
 in remedies prescribed for the occasion, nor in short- 
 cuts for reforming social evils. On such matters he 
 was a difficult man to move. Hence he was not found 
 hurrying to and fro in quest of every fresh symptom 
 that might be clamorous for a cure. But he had a 
 steadfast faith in the operation of general causes, such 
 as temperance, education, the improvement of the 
 material condition of the people, and the removal of 
 political inequalities. He aimed chiefly at being just 
 and doing justly. He believed in the remedial power 
 of justice, and he loved it with an ardour which set his 
 whole being on fire. But having given the people what 
 they were entitled to, he was not disposed to go further. 
 Anything like petting or coddling seemed to him to be 
 at variance with manliness, and sure to fail of its object. 
 Give them, he would say, equal political rights with the 
 rest of the community, remove every hindrance to their 
 industry, and then, with the aid of the schoolmaster 
 and a cheap press, they may be left to work out their 
 own salvation " (Dunkley). 
 
 His strong conviction that the Crimean War was a 
 blunder and a crime brought him into collision with the 
 great body of his fellow-countrymen, and ultimately 
 cost him his seat for Manchester. He was, not long 
 afterwards, elected Member for Birmingham, and con- 
 tinued to represent that constituency to the day of his 
 death. When three-fourths of the Members of the 
 House of Commons were anxious for the break-up of 
 the American Union, in the dispute over the question 
 of slavery, Bright adhered heroically to the cause of the 
 North, appealing, not without success, to the tribunal of 
 working-class opinion on behalf of his faith in freedom. 
 
 After the General Election of 1868, he became a 
 member of Mr. Gladstone's Government ; he finally 
 left it in 1882 as a protest against the bombardment of 
 Alexandria. It is important to notice, however, that in 
 this case, as in the case of the Crimean War, he based 
 his opposition on the merits of the quarrel, and that he 
 refused to commit himself to any condemnation of all 
 war in the abstract. During his tenure of office the
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 Bright Land Clauses of the Irish Church Act, which 
 were the basis of all subsequent Irish land legislation, 
 proved his success as a practical legislator. His sug- 
 gestion of a commercial treaty between England and 
 France, taken up by Chevalier, led to the famous treaty 
 which Cobden carried out between the two countries in 
 1 86 1, with such beneficent and far-reaching results. 
 With all his sympathy for Ireland, Mr. Bright never 
 accepted the idea of a separate legislature, and Glad- 
 stone's Home Rule Bill, therefore, did not obtain his 
 approval. To his infinite regret, he consequently passed 
 his last years in political separation from Mr. Gladstone 
 and from many of his other old friends. 
 
 One of Mr. Bright's great sayings was, that " states- 
 manship consists as much in foreseeing as in doing." 
 His historian, in the " Dictionary of National Bio- 
 graphy," thus points out the singular success of his 
 own important forecasts. In his first speech in the 
 House of Commons (August 7, 1843) he remarked 
 that Peel was at issue with his party upon principles. 
 On June 25, 1844, he predicted that Peel would re- 
 peal the Corn Laws at the first bad harvest. From 
 the outset of his career he denounced the Irish Church 
 establishment. He foresaw the danger of restriction 
 to one source for the supply of cotton ; the probability 
 of a cotton famine ensuing on the break-up of slavery, 
 and the consequent disorganization of the Southern 
 States. He insisted that India should be brought 
 under the authority of the Crown. While Palmerston 
 was asserting the revival of Turkey, Bright as con- 
 sistently insisted that Turkey was a decaying power. 
 Sir James Graham afterwards made him the admission, 
 " You were entirely right about the Crimean War ; we 
 were entirely wrong." He predicted that the successful 
 defence of Turkey would lead to fresh demands on her 
 as soon as Russia had recovered from her exhaustion. 
 He foretold that the cession of Savoy would bring 
 about Italy's independence from French control. He 
 said, as far back as 1878, that an Irish party hostile to 
 the Liberal party in Great Britain involves the per- 
 petual reign of the Tories."
 
 X 
 
 Introduction 
 
 A man who attacked all the cherished idols of the 
 ruling classes, and who characterized the aggressive 
 foreign policy of Palmerston as " a gigantic system of 
 out-door relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain," 
 was not likely to be much loved by the great ones of 
 the earth. And " there was nothing deprecatory about 
 John Bright. He could be quite as insolent in his way 
 as any aristocrat in his. What was really irritating 
 about him was that his disdain was genuine. He did 
 think very little of the Tory party, and he did not care 
 one straw for the opinion of society. He positively 
 would not have cared to have been made a Baronet." 
 
 Years have elapsed since these speeches were de- 
 livered, but they are not therefore out of date. Of the 
 1,500 pages that Rogers selected for publication there 
 are very few that do not still afford good reading, and 
 the same applies to many other addresses which might 
 be disinterred from old newspaper files. The great 
 problem of Indian government is always with us. Pro- 
 tection, which its champion, Disraeli, said was " not 
 only dead, but damned," is again trying to rear its head. 
 The military and naval expenditure, which Bright held 
 to be absurd and wasteful, was small compared with that 
 which a Liberal Government now considers neces- 
 sary. Those causes which, largely through Bright's 
 influence, were carried to a successful issue, and have 
 become part of the national inheritance, depended on 
 the underlying principle of faith in freedom, which is of 
 undying value and importance. His great saying, 
 " Force is no remedy," deserves specially to be revived 
 at a time when its spirit has been eclipsed by clouds of 
 materialism and passion. 
 
 As models of the clear and convincing expression of 
 thought, Mr. Bright's speeches will be read and re-read 
 by every student of the English language and by every 
 one who wishes to learn so to express himself as to 
 influence the minds of his fellow-countrymen. It was 
 said that Bright and Gladstone were the only men of 
 their time in the House of Commons whose eloquence 
 actually changed votes. Thorold Rogers remarked how 
 well these speeches fulfil the three demands of Aristotle
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 that an orator must convince his audience at the outset, 
 first, that he has their interests at heart ; next, that he 
 is competent to interpret them ; and thirdly, that he is 
 free from any taint of self-seeking. It was remarkable 
 to notice how, if the apt word he wanted did not come 
 to John Bright at first, he would keep the mighty audi- 
 ence hanging on his lips for quite a long pause until he 
 had found the very phrase that 
 
 " Helved his thought as slick 
 As straight-grained hickory does the hatchet." 
 
 In studying the speeches, it will be noticed how 
 thoroughly Mr. Bright's mind was impregnated by the 
 study of the Bible and of great English classics, especi- 
 ally Milton. The point of almost every address seems 
 to be brought out by a line from the Old Testament, or 
 it may be from Dante, from Homer, or from Lowell. 
 
 A generation has grown up which never felt how 
 John Bright not only convinced men's minds, but 
 " swayed their hearts like barley bending," and which 
 is not thrilled by the mention of his name. The esteem 
 in which Birmingham held him was well voiced by 
 Dr. R. W. Dale in August, 1882 : " I venture to say 
 that the affection and veneration which Mr. Bright has 
 inspired are not fully explained either by his eloquence 
 or by the magnificent service which he has rendered to 
 the country. The man is greater than the eloquence. 
 The man is nobler than his service. In circumstances 
 of great peril Mr. Bright has always been loyal to his 
 conscience. Slanders never turned him aside from 
 what he believed to be the path of righteousness, nor 
 mockery, nor insult, nor hatred. He never quailed 
 before the power of the great ; and when, for a time, 
 fidelity to conscience brought upon him storms of un- 
 popularity, and he lost the confidence of the people he 
 loved and served, Mr. Bright remained faithful still. I 
 believe he has elevated the national ideal of political 
 morality." This passage may help to illustrate the 
 faith and enthusiasm that Bright inspired in great 
 masses of his fellow-countrymen and the influence which 
 he wielded over the minds of his generation — an influ-
 
 xii Introduction 
 
 ence doubtless based on his own profound faith in 
 righteousness, in the Divine government of the world, 
 and in the duty of every citizen to take his share in 
 carrying that government forward. 
 
 The following selections from the speeches will be 
 sufficient to illustrate Mr. Bright's determined opposi- 
 tion to the Crimean War, his passionate protest against 
 the rebellion of the American Slave States, his desire to 
 bring the possession of land within the reach of the 
 people of England and Ireland, and his suggestions for 
 the better government of India. They will serve their 
 purpose if they induce some of their readers to study the 
 volumes from which they are taken, and to consider the 
 problems of the present day in the light of the principles 
 for the furtherance of which John Bright's life was 
 spent. 
 
 1907. 
 
 The following is a list of Bright's published speeches, 
 letters, etc. : 
 
 " Speeches on Questions of Public Policy," edited by Professor 
 J. E. Thorold Rogers, 2 vols., 1868 ; popular edition, 1 vol., 1878, 
 1892 ; " Public Addresses," edited by Professor J. E. Thorold 
 Rogers, 1879 ; " Public Letters," collected by H. J. Leech, 1885 ; 
 " Life and Speeches of John Bright," by G. B. Smith, 1881.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 I. INDIA — I ------- I 
 
 II. INDIA — II - - - - - - -22 
 
 III. INDIA III. : IRRIGATION - - - - "37 
 
 IV. INDIA — IV. : PERVERSION OF AFFGHAN DESPATCHES - 52 
 V. AMERICA— I. : THE "TRENT" AFFAIR - - "59 
 
 VI. AMERICA — II.: THE WAR AND THE SUPPLY OF COTTON 75 
 
 VII. AMERICA— III. : THE STRUGGLE IN AMERICA - - 84 
 
 VIII. IRELAND - - - - . . 85 
 
 IX. GENERAL POLITICS - IO7 
 
 X. RUSSIAN WAR — I. : THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE - - I24 
 
 XI. RUSSIAN WAR — II ..... j^ 
 
 XII. RUSSIAN WAR — III. : NEGOTIATIONS AT VIENNA - I55 
 
 XIII. DANGER OF WAR WITH RUSSIA - - - . 157 
 
 XIV. THE LAND QUESTION — I - 170 
 XV. THE LAND QUESTION — II .... igo 
 
 XVI. FOREIGN POLICY ------ ig6 
 
 XVII. PEACE ------- 221 
 
 XVIII. FREE TRADE ------ 232 
 
 XIX. PROGRESS OF THE NATION .... 250 
 
 Xlll
 
 By kind permission of Mr. J. A Bright, M.P 
 and of Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Limited, the 
 text has been taken from Mr. Thorold Rogers' 
 edition of the Speeches and Public Addresses, 
 which had the advantage of Mr. Bright's own 
 revision.
 
 I 
 
 INDIA— I 
 
 (from hansard) 
 
 House of Commons, June 24, 1858. 
 
 [After the suppression of the Indian mutiny, Lord Palmerston's 
 Government determined to introduce a Bill the object of 
 which was to place the possessions of the East India 
 Company under the direct authority of the Crown. This 
 Bill was introduced by Lord Palmerston on February 12. 
 But the Government fell a few days afterwards, on the 
 Conspiracy Bill, and Lord Palmerston's Bill was withdrawn. 
 On March 26 the new Government introduced their own Bill, 
 which was known as the India Bill No. 2. The chief 
 peculiarity of this Bill was that five members in the proposed 
 council of eighteen should be chosen by the constituencies 
 of the following cities: London, Manchester, Liverpool, 
 Glasgow, and Belfast. The scheme was unpopular, and 
 Lord Russell proposed that it should be withdrawn, and that 
 resolutions should be passed in a Committee of the whole 
 House, the acceptance of which might prove a guide to 
 the proceedings of the Government. The suggestion was 
 accepted by Mr. Disraeli, and in consequence India Bill 
 No. 3 was brought in, and read a second time on June 24. 
 
 The non-recognition, by the East India Company's govern- 
 ment of adopted heirs was doubtless, one of the contributory 
 causes of the mutiny of 1857. After peace was restored, the 
 right of adoption was expressly recognized by the Govern- 
 ment, and Sanads, or documents guaranteeing this right, were 
 issued by Lord Canning to all the chiefs on March 11, 1862.] 
 
 What is it we have to complain of in India ? What 
 is it that the people of India, if they spoke by my 
 mouth, have to complain of ? They would tell the 
 House that, as a rule, throughout almost all the 
 Presidencies, and throughout those Presidencies most 
 which have been longest under British rule, the culti- 
 vators of the soil, the great body of the population of 
 India, are in a condition of great impoverishment, of 
 
 A
 
 2 Bright's Speeches 
 
 great dejection, and of great suffering. I have, on 
 former occasions, quoted to the House the report of a 
 Committee which I obtained ten years ago, upon which 
 sat several members of the Court of Directors ; and 
 they all agreed to report as much as I have now stated 
 to the House — the Report being confined chiefly to the 
 Presidencies of Bombay and Madras. If I were now 
 submitting the case of the population of India I would 
 say that the taxes of India are more onerous and 
 oppressive than the taxes of any other country in the 
 world. I think I could demonstrate that proposition 
 to the House. I would show that industry is neglected 
 by the Government to a greater extent probably than 
 is the case in any other country in the world which has 
 been for any length of time under what is termed a 
 civilized and Christian government. I should be able 
 to show from the notes and memoranda of eminent 
 men in India, of the Governor of Bengal, Mr. Halliday, 
 for example, that there is not, and never has been in 
 any country pretending to be civilized, a condition of 
 things to be compared with that which exists under 
 the police administration of the province of Bengal. 
 With regard to the courts of justice I may say the 
 same thing. I could quote passages from books written 
 in favour of the Company with all the bias which the 
 strongest friends of the Company can have, in which 
 the writers declare that, precisely in proportion as 
 English courts of justice have extended, have perjury 
 and all the evils which perjury introduces into the 
 administration of justice prevailed throughout the 
 Presidencies of India. With regard to public works, if 
 I were speaking for the Natives of India, I would state 
 this fact, that in a single English county there are more 
 roads — more travelable roads — than are to be found in 
 the whole of India ; and I would say also that the 
 single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabi- 
 tants with the single article of water, has spent a larger 
 sum of money than the East India Company has spent 
 in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works 
 of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions. 
 I would say that the real activity of the Indian Govern-
 
 India 3 
 
 ment has been an activity of conquest and annexation 
 — of conquest and annexation which after a time has 
 led to a fearful catastrophe, which has enforced on the 
 House an attention to the question of India, which but for 
 that catastrophe I fear the House would not have given it. 
 If there were another charge to be made against the 
 past Government of India, it would be with regard to 
 the state of its finances. Where was there a bad 
 Government whose finances were in good order ? 
 Where was there a really good Government whose 
 finances were in bad order ? Is there a better test in 
 the long run of the condition of a people and the merits 
 of a Government than the state of the finances ? And 
 yet not in our own time, but going back through all 
 the pages of Mill, or of any other history of India, we 
 find the normal condition of the finances of India has 
 been that of deficit and bankruptcy. I maintain that if 
 that be so, the Government is a bad Government. It 
 has cost more to govern India than the Government 
 has been able to extract from the population of India. 
 The Government has not been scrupulous as to the 
 amount of taxes or the mode in which they have been 
 levied ; but still, to carry on the government of India 
 according to the system which has heretofore prevailed, 
 more has been required than the Government has been 
 able to extract by any system of taxation known to 
 them from the population over which they have ruled. 
 It has cost more than 30,000,000/. a year to govern 
 India, and the gross revenue being somewhere about 
 30,000,000/., and there being a deficit, the deficit has 
 had to be made up by loans. The Government has 
 obtained all they could from the population ; it is 
 not enough, and they have had to borrow from the 
 population and from Europeans at a high rate of 
 interest to make up the sum which has been found to 
 be necessary. They have a debt of 60,000,000/., and 
 it is continually increasing ; they always have a loan 
 open ; and while their debt is increasing their credit 
 has been falling, because they have not treated their 
 creditors very honourably on one or two occasions, and 
 chiefly, of course, on account of the calamities which 
 
 A 2
 
 4 Bright's Speeches 
 
 have recently happened in India. There is one point 
 with regard to taxation which I wish to explain to the 
 House, and I hope that, in the reforms to which the 
 noble Lord is looking forward, it will not be overlooked. 
 I have said that the gross revenue is 30,000,000/. 
 Exclusive of the opium revenue, which is not, strictly 
 speaking, and hardly at all, a tax upon the people, I 
 set down the taxation of the country at something 
 like 25,000,000/. Hon. Gentlemen must not compare 
 25,000,000/. of taxation in India with 60,000,000/. of 
 taxation in England. They must bear in mind that in 
 India they could have twelve days' labour of a man 
 for the same sum in silver or gold which they have to 
 pay for one day's labour of a man in England ; that if, for 
 example, this 25,000,000/. were expended in purchasing 
 labour, that sum would purchase twelve times as much 
 in India as in England — that is to say, that the 
 25,000,000/. would purchase as many days' labour in 
 India as 300,000,000/. would purchase in England. 
 [An Hon Member : " How much is the labour worth ?"] 
 That is precisely what 1 am coming to. If the labour 
 of a man is only worth 2d. a day, they could not expect 
 as much revenue from him as if it were 25. a day. That 
 is just the point to which I wish the hon. Gentleman 
 would turn his attention. We have in England a 
 population which, for the sake of argument, I will 
 call 30,000,000. We have in India a population of 
 150,000,000. Therefore, the population of India is 
 five times as great as the population of England. We 
 raise in India, reckoning by the value of labour, 
 taxation equivalent to 300,000,000/., which is five 
 times the English revenue. Some one may probably 
 say, therefore, that the taxation in India and in 
 England appears to be about the same, and no great 
 injury is done. But it must be borne in mind that in 
 England we have an incalculable power of steam, of 
 machinery, of modes of transit, roads, canals, railways, 
 and everything which capital and human invention 
 can bring to help the industry of the people ; while in 
 India there is nothing of the kind. In India there is 
 scarcely a decent road, the rivers are not bridged,
 
 India 5 
 
 there are comparatively no steam engines, and none of 
 those aids to industry that meet us at every step in 
 Great Britain and Ireland. Suppose steam engines, 
 machinery, and modes of transit abolished in England, 
 how much revenue would the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer obtain from the people of England ? Instead 
 of 60,000,000/. a year, would he get 10,000,000/. ? I 
 doubt it very much. If the House will follow out the 
 argument, they will come to the conclusion that the 
 taxes of the people of India are oppressive to the last 
 degree, and that the Government which has thus taxed 
 them can be tolerated no longer, and must be put an 
 end to at once and for ever. I wish to say something 
 about the manner in which these great expenses are 
 incurred. The extravagance of the East India Govern- 
 ment is notorious to all. I believe there never was 
 any other service under the sun paid at so high a rate 
 as the exclusive Civil Service of the East India Com- 
 pany. Clergymen and missionaries can be got to go 
 out to India for a moderate sum — private soldiers and 
 officers of the army go out for a moderate remuneration 
 — merchants are content to live in the cities of India 
 for a percentage or profit not greatly exceeding the 
 ordinary profits of commerce. But the Civil Service, 
 because it is bound up with those who were raised by 
 it and who dispense the patronage of India, receive a 
 rate of payment which would be incredible if we did 
 not know it to be true, and which, knowing it to be 
 true, we must admit to be monstrous. The East 
 India Government scatters salaries about at Bombay, 
 Calcutta, Madras, Agra, Lahore, and half a dozen 
 other cities, which are up to the mark of those of the 
 Prime Minister and Secretaries of State in this country. 
 These salaries are framed upon the theory that India is 
 a mine of inexhaustible wealth, although no one has 
 found it to be so but the members of the Civil Service 
 of the East India Company. The policy of the Govern- 
 ment is at the bottom of the constant deficit. The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer has twice recently de- 
 clared that expenditure depends upon policy. That is 
 as true in India as in England, and it is the policy that
 
 Bright's Speeches 
 
 has been pursued there which renders the revenue 
 liable to this constantly recurring deficit. 
 
 I have come to the conclusion, which many hon. 
 Members probably share with me, that the edifice we 
 have reared in India is too vast. There are few men 
 now, and least of all those connected with the East 
 India Company, who, looking back to the policy that 
 has been pursued, will not be willing to admit that it 
 has not been judicious but hazardous — -that territories 
 have been annexed that had better have been left inde- 
 pendent, and that wars have been undertaken which 
 were as needless as they were altogether unjustifiable. 
 The immense empire that has been conquered is too 
 vast for management, its base is in decay, and during 
 the last twelve months it has appeared to be tottering 
 to its fall. Who or what is the instrument — the Cabinet, 
 the Government, or the person — by whom this evil 
 policy is carried on ? 
 
 The greatest officer in India is the Governor-General. 
 He is the ruler of about one-fifth — certainly more than 
 one-sixth — of the human race. The Emperors of 
 France and Russia are but the governors of provinces 
 compared with the power, the dignity, and the high 
 estate of the Governor- General of India. Now, over 
 this officer, almost no real control is exercised. If I 
 were to appeal to the two hon. Gentlemen who have 
 frequently addressed the House during these debates 
 (Colonel Sykes and Mr. Willoughby), they would 
 probably admit that the Governor-General of India is 
 an officer of such high position that scarcely any 
 control can be exercised over him either in India or in 
 England. Take the case of the Marquess of Dalhousie 
 for example. I am not about to make an attack upon 
 him, for the occasion is too solemn for personal con- 
 troversies. But the annexation of Sattara, of the 
 Punjab, of Nagpore, and of Oude occurred under his 
 rule. I will not go into the case of Sattara ; but one 
 of its Princes, and one of the most magnanimous 
 Princes that India ever produced, suffered and died 
 most unjustly in exile, either through the mistakes or 
 the crimes of the Government of India. This, how-
 
 India 7 
 
 ever, was not done under the Government of Lord 
 Dalhousie. As to the annexation of Nagpore, the 
 House has never heard anything about it to this hour. 
 There has been no message from the Crown or state- 
 ment of the Government relative to that annexation. 
 Hon. Members have indeed heard from India that the 
 dresses and wardrobes of the ladies of its Court have 
 been exposed to sale, like a bankrupt's stock, in the 
 haberdashers' shops of Calcutta — a thing likely to 
 incense and horrify the people of India who witnessed it. 
 
 Take, again, the case of the Burmese war. The 
 Governor-General entered into it, and annexed the 
 province of Pegu, and to this day there has been no 
 treaty with the King of Burmah. If that case had 
 been brought before the House, it is impossible that 
 the war with Burmah could have been entered upon. 
 I do not believe that there is one man in England 
 who, knowing the facts, would say that this war was 
 just or necessary in any sense. The Governor-General 
 has an army of 300,000 men under his command ; he 
 is a long way from home ; he is highly connected with 
 the governing classes at home; there are certain 
 reasons that make war palatable to large classes in 
 India; and he is so powerful that he enters into these 
 great military operations almost uncontrolled by the 
 opinion of the Parliament and people of England. He 
 may commit any amount of blunders or crimes against 
 the moral law, and he will still come home loaded with 
 dignities and in the enjoyment of pensions. Does it 
 not become the power and character of this House to 
 examine narrowly the origin of the misfortunes and 
 disgraces of the grave catastrophe which has just 
 occurred ? The place of the Governor- General is too 
 high — his power is too great — and I believe that this 
 particular office and officer are very much responsible 
 — of course, under the Government at home — for the 
 disasters that have taken place. 
 
 Only think of a Governor- General of India writing 
 to an Indian Prince, the ruler over many millions of 
 men in the heart of India, " Remember you are but as 
 the dust under my feet." Passages like these are left
 
 8 Bright's Speeches 
 
 out of despatches, when laid on the table of the 
 House of Commons : — it would not do for the Parlia- 
 ment, or the Crown, or the people of England to know 
 that their officer addressed language like this to a Native 
 Prince. The fact is that a Governor-General of India, 
 unless he be such a man as is not found more than 
 once in a century, is very liable to have his head turned, 
 and to form ambitious views, which are mainly to be 
 gratified by successful wars and the annexation of pro- 
 vince after province during the period of his rule. The 
 " Services " are always ready to help him in these plans. 
 I am not sure that the President of the Board of Con- 
 trol could not give evidence on this subject, for I have 
 heard something of what happened when the noble 
 Lord was in India. When the Burmese war broke 
 out, the noble Lord could, no doubt, tell the House 
 that, without inquiring into the quarrel or its causes, 
 the press of India, which was devoted to the " Services," 
 and the " Services " themselves, united in universal 
 approbation of the course taken by the Governor- 
 General. Justice to Pegu and Burmah and the taxes 
 to be raised for the support of the war were forgotten, 
 and nothing but visions of more territory and more 
 patronage floated before the eyes of the official English 
 in India. I contend that the power of the Governor- 
 General is too great and the office too high to be held 
 by the subject of any Power whatsoever, and especially 
 by any subject of the Queen of England. 
 
 I should propose, if I were in a position to offer a 
 scheme in the shape of a Bill to the House, as an in- 
 dispensable preliminary to the wise government of 
 India in future, such as would be creditable to Parlia- 
 ment and advantageous to the people of India, that the 
 office of Governor-General should be abolished. Per- 
 haps some hon. Gentlemen may think this a very 
 unreasonable proposition. Many people thought it 
 unreasonable in 1853, when it was proposed to abolish 
 the East India Company ; but now Parliament and the 
 country believe it to be highly reasonable and proper ; 
 and I am not sure that I could not bring before the 
 House reasons to convince them that the abolition of
 
 India 9 
 
 the office of Governor-General is one of the most sen- 
 sible and one of the most Conservative proposals ever 
 brought forward in connection with the Government of 
 India. I believe the duties of the Governor-General 
 are far greater than any human being can adequately 
 fulfil. He has a power omnipotent to crush anything 
 that is good. If he so wishes, he can overbear and 
 overrule whatever is proposed for the welfare of India, 
 while, as to doing anything that is good, I could show 
 that with regard to the vast countries over which he 
 rules, he is really almost powerless to effect anything 
 that those countries require. The hon. Gentleman 
 behind me (Colonel Sykes) has told us there are twenty 
 nations in India, and that there are twenty languages. 
 Has it ever happened before that any one man governed 
 twenty nations, speaking twenty different languages, 
 and bound them together in one great and compact 
 empire? [An hon. Member here made an observa- 
 tion.] My hon. Friend mentions a great Parthian 
 monarch. No doubt there have been men strong in 
 arm and in head, and of stern resolution, who have 
 kept great empires together during their lives ; but as 
 soon as they went the way of all flesh, and descended, 
 like the meanest of their subjects, to the tomb, the 
 provinces they had ruled were divided into several 
 States, and their great empires vanished. I might ask 
 the noble Lord below me (Lord John Russell) and the 
 noble Lord the Member for Tiverton . . . whether, when 
 they came to appoint a Governor - General of India, 
 they did not find it one of the most serious and difficult 
 duties they could be called on to perform ? I do not 
 know at this moment, and I never have known, a man 
 competent to govern India ; and if any man says he is 
 competent, he sets himself up at a much higher value 
 than those who are acquainted with him are likely to 
 set him. Let the House look at the making of the laws 
 for twenty nations speaking twenty languages. Look 
 at the regulations of the police for twenty nations 
 speaking twenty languages. Look at the question of 
 public works as it affects twenty nations speaking 
 twenty languages ; where there is no municipal power
 
 io Bright's Speeches 
 
 and no combinations of any kind, such as facilitate 
 the construction of public works in this country. 
 Inevitably all those duties that devolve on every good 
 Government must be neglected by the Governor- 
 General of India, however wise, capable, and honest he 
 may be in the performance of his duties, because the 
 duties laid upon him are such as no man now living 
 or who ever lived can or could properly sustain. 
 
 It may be asked what I would substitute for the 
 Governor-Generalship of India. Now, I do not propose 
 to abolish the office of Governor-General of India this 
 Session. I am not proposing any clause in the Bill, 
 and if I were to propose one to carry out the idea I 
 have expressed, I might be answered by the argument, 
 that a great part of the population of India is in a state 
 of anarchy, and that it would be most inconvenient, if 
 not dangerous, to abolish the office of Governor-General 
 at such a time. I do not mean to propose such a thing 
 now ; but I take this opportunity of stating my views, 
 in the hope that when we come to 1863 we may perhaps 
 be able to consider the question more in the light in 
 which I am endeavouring to present it to the House. 
 I would propose that, instead of having a Governor- 
 General and an Indian Empire, we should have neither 
 the one nor the other. I would propose that we should 
 have Presidencies, and not an Empire. If I were a 
 Minister — which the House will admit is a bold figure 
 of speech — and if the House were to agree with me — 
 which is also an essential point — I would propose to 
 have at least five Presidencies in India, and I would 
 have the governments of those Presidencies perfectly 
 equal in rank and in salary. The capitals of those 
 Presidencies would probably be Calcutta, Madras, 
 Bombay, Agra, and Lahore. I will take the Presi- 
 dency of Madras as an illustration. Madras has a 
 population of some 20,000,000. We all know its posi- 
 tion on the map, and that it has the advantage of being 
 more compact, geographically speaking, than the other 
 Presidencies. It has a Governor and a Council. I 
 would give to it a Governor and a Council still, but 
 would confine all their duties to the Presidency of
 
 India n 
 
 Madras, and I would treat it just as if Madras was 
 the only portion of India connected with this country. 
 I would have its finance, its taxation, its justice, and its 
 police departments, as well as its public works and 
 military departments, precisely the same as if it were a 
 State having no connection with any other part of India, 
 and recognized only as a dependency of this country. 
 I would propose that the Government of every Presi- 
 dency should correspond with the Secretary for India 
 in England, and that there should be telegraphic com- 
 munications between all the Presidencies in India, as I 
 hope before long to see a telegraphic communication 
 between the office of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) 
 and every Presidency over which he presides. I shall 
 no doubt be told that there are insuperable difficulties 
 in the way of such an arrangement, and I shall be sure 
 to hear of the military difficulty. Now, I do not pro- 
 fess to be an authority on military affairs, but I know 
 that military men often make great mistakes. I would 
 have the army divided, each Presidency having its own 
 army, just as now, care being taken to have them kept 
 distinct ; and I see no danger of any confusion or mis- 
 understanding, when an emergency arose, in having 
 them all brought together to carry out the views of the 
 Government. There is one question which it is im- 
 portant to bear in mind, and that is with regard to the 
 Councils in India. I think every Governor of a Presi- 
 dency should have an assistant Council, but differently 
 constituted from what they now are. . . . What we 
 want is to make the Governments of the Presidencies 
 Governments for the people of the Presidencies ; not 
 Governments for the civil servants of the Crown, but 
 for the non-official mercantile classes from England 
 who settle there, and for the 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 
 of Natives in each Presidency. 
 
 I should propose to do that which has been done 
 with great advantage in Ceylon. I have received a 
 letter from an officer who has been in the service of 
 the East India Company, and who told me a fact 
 which has gratified me very much. He says : 
 
 "At a public dinner at Colombo, in 1835, to the
 
 12 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Governor, Sir Wilmot Horton, at which I was present, 
 the best speech of the evening was made by a native 
 nobleman of Candy, and a member of Council. It was 
 remarkable for its appropriate expression, its sound 
 sense, and the deliberation and ease that marked the 
 utterance of his feelings. There was no repetition of 
 useless phraseology or flattery, and it was admitted by 
 all who heard him to be the soundest and neatest 
 speech of the night." 
 
 This was in Ceylon. It is not, of course, always the 
 best man who can make the best speech ; but if what 
 I have read could be said of a native of Ceylon, it could 
 be said of thousands in India. We need not go beyond 
 the walls of this House to find a head bronzed by an 
 Indian sun equal to the ablest heads of those who 
 adorn its benches. And in every part of India we all 
 know that it would be an insult to the people of India 
 to say that it is not the same. There are thousands of 
 persons in India who are competent to take any position 
 to which the Government may choose to advance 
 them. If the Governor of each Presidency were to 
 have in his Council some of the officials of his Govern- 
 ment, some of the non-official Europeans resident in 
 the Presidency, and two or three at least of the intelli- 
 gent Natives of the Presidency in whom the people 
 would have some confidence, you would have begun that 
 which will be of inestimable value hereafter — you would 
 have begun to unite the government with the governed ; 
 and unless you do that, no government will be safe, and 
 any hurricane may overturn it or throw it into confusion. 
 
 Now, suppose the Governor - General gone, the 
 Presidencies established, the Governors equal in rank 
 and dignity, and their Councils constituted in the 
 manner I have indicated, is it not reasonable to suppose 
 that the delay which has hitherto been one of the 
 greatest curses of your Indian Government would be 
 almost altogether avoided ? Instead of a Governor- 
 General living in Calcutta, or at Simla, never travel- 
 ling over the whole of the country, and knowing very 
 little about it, and that little only through other official 
 eyes, is it not reasonable to suppose that the action of
 
 India 13 
 
 the Government would be more direct in all its duties 
 and in every department of its service than has been 
 the case under the system which has existed until now ? 
 Your administration of the law, marked by so much 
 disgrace, could never have lasted so long as it has 
 done if the Governors of your Presidencies had been 
 independent Governors. So with regard to matters of 
 police, education, public works, and everything that 
 can stimulate industry, and so with regard to your 
 system of taxation. You would have in every Presi- 
 dency a constant rivalry for good. The Governor of 
 Madras, when his term of office expired, would be 
 delighted to show that the people of that Presidency 
 were contented, that the whole Presidency was advanc- 
 ing in civilization, that roads and all manner of useful 
 public works were extending, that industry was becom- 
 ing more and more a habit of the people, and that the 
 exports and imports were constantly increasing. The 
 Governors of Bombay and the rest of the Presidencies 
 would be animated by the same spirit, and so you 
 would have all over India, as I have said, a rivalry for 
 good ; you would have placed a check on that malignant 
 spirit of ambition which has worked so much evil — you 
 would have no Governor so great that you could not 
 control him, none who might make war when he 
 pleased ; war and annexation would be greatly checked, 
 if not entirely prevented ; and I do in my conscience 
 believe you would have laid the foundation for a better 
 and more permanent form of government for India than 
 has ever obtained since it came under the rule of England. 
 But how long does England propose to govern 
 India ? Nobody answers that question, and nobody 
 can answer it. Be it 50, or 100, or 500 years, does any 
 man with the smallest glimmering of common sense 
 believe that so great a country, with its twenty different 
 nations and its twenty languages, can ever be bound 
 up and consolidated into one compact and enduring 
 empire ? I believe such a thing to be utterly im- 
 possible. We must fail in the attempt if ever we make 
 it, and we are bound to look into the future with 
 reference to that point. The Presidency of Madras,
 
 14 B right's Speeches 
 
 for instance, having its own Government, would in fifty 
 years become one compact State, and every part of the 
 Presidency would look to the city of Madras as its 
 capital, and to the Government of Madras as its ruling 
 power. If that were to go on for a century or more, 
 there would be five or six Presidencies of India built 
 up into so many compact States ; and if at any future 
 period the sovereignty of England should be with- 
 drawn, we should leave so many Presidencies built up 
 and firmly compacted together, each able to support its 
 own independence and its own Government ; and we 
 should be able to say we had not left the country a 
 prey to that anarchy and discord which I believe to be 
 inevitable if we insist on holding those vast territories 
 with the idea of building them up into one great 
 empire. But I am obliged to admit that mere 
 machinery is not sufficient in this case, either with 
 respect to my own scheme or to that of the noble Lord 
 (Lord Stanley). We want something else than mere 
 clerks, stationery, despatches, and so forth. We want 
 what I shall designate as a new feeling in England, 
 and an entirely new policy in India. We must in 
 future have India governed, not for a handful of 
 Englishmen, not for that Civil Service whose praises 
 are so constantly sounded in this House. You may 
 govern India, if you like, for the good of England, but 
 the good of England must come through the channels 
 of the good of India. There are but two modes of 
 gaining anything by our connection with India. The 
 one is by plundering the people of India, and the other 
 by trading with them. I prefer to do it by trading 
 with them. But in order that England may become 
 rich by trading with India, India itself must become 
 rich, and India can only become rich through the 
 honest administration of justice and through entire 
 security of life and property. 
 
 Now, as to this new policy, I will tell the House 
 what I think the Prime Minister should do. He ought, 
 I think, always to choose for his President of the 
 Board of Control or his Secretary of State for India, 
 a man who cannot be excelled by any other man in
 
 India 15 
 
 his Cabinet, or in his party, for capacity, for honesty, 
 for attention to his duties, and for knowledge adapted 
 to the particular office to which he is appointed. If 
 any Prime Minister appoint an inefficient man to such 
 an office, he will be a traitor to the Throne of England. 
 That officer, appointed for the qualities I have just 
 indicated, should, with equal scrupulousness and con- 
 sciousness, make the appointments, whether of the 
 Governor-General, or (should that office be abolished) 
 of the Governors of the Presidencies of India. Those 
 appointments should not be rewards for old men simply 
 because such men have done good service when in 
 their prime, nor should they be rewards for mere party 
 service, but they should be appointments given under 
 a feeling that interests of the very highest moment, 
 connected with this country, depend on those great 
 offices in India being properly filled. The same prin- 
 ciples should run throughout the whole system of 
 government ; for, unless there be a very high degree 
 of virtue in all these appointments, and unless our 
 great object be to govern India well and to exalt the 
 name of England in the eyes of the whole Native 
 population, all that we have recourse to in the way of 
 machinery will be of very little use indeed. 
 
 I admit that this is a great work ; I admit, also, that 
 the further I go into the consideration of this question, 
 the more I feel that it is too large for me to grapple 
 with, and that every step we take in it should be taken 
 as if we were men walking in the dark. We have, 
 however, certain great principles to guide us, and by 
 their light we may make steps in advance, if not fast, 
 at any rate sure. But we start from an unfortunate 
 position. We start from a platform of conquest by 
 force of arms extending over a hundred years. There 
 is nothing in the world worse than the sort of founda- 
 tion from which we start. The greatest genius who 
 has shed lustre on the literature of this country has 
 said, "There is no sure foundation set on blood"; and 
 it may be our unhappy fate, in regard to India, to 
 demonstrate the truth of that saying. We are always 
 subjugators, and we must be viewed with hatred and
 
 1 6 Bright's Speeches 
 
 suspicion. I say we must look at the thing as it is, if 
 we are to see our exact position, what our duty is, and 
 what chance there is of our retaining India and of 
 governing it for the advantage of its people. Our 
 ■difficulties have been enormously increased by the 
 revolt. The people of India have only seen England 
 in its worst form in that country. They have seen it 
 in its military power, its exclusive Civil Service, and 
 in the supremacy of a handful of foreigners. When 
 Natives of India come to this country, they are 
 delighted with England and with Englishmen. They 
 find themselves treated with a kindness, a considera- 
 tion, a respect, to which they were wholly strangers in 
 their own country ; and they cannot understand how it 
 is that men who are so just, so attentive to them here, 
 sometimes, indeed too often, appear to them in a 
 different character in India. I remember that the 
 Hon. Frederic Shore, who wrote some thirty years 
 since, stated, in his able and instructive book, that 
 even in his time the conduct of the English in India 
 towards the Natives was less agreeable, less kindly, 
 less just than it had been in former years ; and in 
 1853, before the Committee presided over by the hon. 
 Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring), evidence 
 was given that the feeling between the rulers and the 
 ruled in India was becoming every year less like what 
 could be desired. It was only the other day there 
 appeared in a letter of the Times' correspondent an 
 anecdote which illustrates what I am saying, and which 
 I feel it necessary to read to the House. Mr. Russell, 
 of the Times, says : 
 
 " I went off to breakfast in a small mosque, which 
 has been turned into a salle a manger by some officers 
 stationed here, and I confess I should have eaten with 
 more satisfaction had I not seen, as I entered the 
 enclosure of the mosque, a native badly wounded on a 
 charpoy, by which was sitting a woman in deep afflic- 
 tion. The explanation given of this scene was, that 
 
 ' [the name of the Englishman was left blank] 
 
 had been licking two of his bearers (or servants), and 
 had nearly murdered them.' This was one of the
 
 India 17 
 
 servants, and, without knowing or caring to know the 
 causes of such chastisement, I cannot but express my 
 disgust at the severity — to call it by no harsher name 
 — of some of our fellow-countrymen towards their 
 domestics." 
 
 The reading of that paragraph gave me extreme 
 pain. People may fancy that this does not matter 
 much ; but I say it matters very much. Under any 
 system of government you will have Englishmen 
 scattered all over India, and conduct like that I have 
 just described, in any district, must create ill feeling 
 towards England, to your rule, to your supremacy ; 
 and when that feeling has become sufficiently extensive, 
 any little accident may give fire to the train, and you 
 may have calamities more or less serious, such as we 
 have had during the last twelve months. You must 
 change all this if you mean to keep India. I do not 
 now make any comment upon the mode in which this 
 country has been put into possession of India. I 
 accept that possession as a fact. There we are ; we do 
 not know how to leave it, and therefore let us see if 
 we know how to govern it. It is a problem such as, 
 perhaps, no other nation has had to solve. Let us see 
 whether there is enough of intelligence and virtue in 
 England to solve the difficulty. In the first place, 
 then, I say, let us abandon all that system of calumny 
 against the Natives of India which has lately prevailed. 
 Had that people not been docile, the most governable 
 race in the world, how could you have maintained your 
 power for ioo years ? Are they not industrious, are 
 they not intelligent, are they not — upon the evidence 
 of the most distinguished men the Indian Service ever 
 produced — endowed with many qualities which make 
 them respected by all Englishmen who mix with them? 
 I have heard that from many men of the widest ex- 
 perience, and have read the same in the works of some 
 of the best writers upon India. Then let us not have 
 these constant calumnies against such a people. Even 
 now there are men who go about the country speaking 
 as if such things had never been contradicted, and 
 talking of mutilations and atrocities committed in 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Bright's Speeches 
 
 India. The less we say about atrocities the better. 
 Great political tumults are, I fear, never brought about 
 or subdued without grievous acts on both sides deeply 
 to be regretted. At least, we are in the position of 
 invaders and conquerors — they are in the position of 
 the invaded and the conquered. Whether I were 
 a native of India, or of England, or of any other 
 country, I would not the less assert the great dis- 
 tinction between their position and ours in that country, 
 and I would not permit any man in my presence, with- 
 out rebuke, to indulge in the calumnies and expressions 
 of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth 
 without measure upon the whole population of India. 
 
 There is one other point to which I wish to address 
 myself before I sit down, and in touching upon it I 
 address myself especially to the noble Lord (Lord 
 Stanley) and his colleagues in the Government. If I 
 had the responsibility of administering the affairs of 
 India, there are certain things I would do. I would, 
 immediately after this Bill passes, issue a Proclamation 
 in India which should reach every subject of the British 
 Crown in that country, and be heard of in the terri- 
 tories of every Indian Prince or Rajah. I would offer 
 a general amnesty. It is all very well to talk of issuing 
 an amnesty to all who have done nothing ; but who is 
 there that has done nothing in such a state of affairs 
 as has prevailed during the past twelve months ? If 
 you pursue your vengeance until you have rooted out 
 and destroyed every one of those soldiers who have 
 revolted, when will your iabour cease ? If you are to 
 punish every non-military Native of India who has 
 given a piece of bread or a cup of water to a revolted 
 trooper, how many Natives will escape your punish- 
 ment and your vengeance ? I would have a general 
 amnesty, which should be put forth as the first great 
 act done directly by the Queen of England in the 
 exercise of Sovereign power over the territories of 
 India. In this Proclamation I would promise to the 
 Natives of India a security for their property as com- 
 plete as we have here at home ; and I would put an 
 end to all those mischievous and irritating inquiries
 
 India 19 
 
 which have been going on for years in many parts of 
 India as to the title to landed estates, by which you 
 tell the people of that country that unless each man 
 can show an unimpeachable title to his property for 
 ninety years you will dispossess him. What would be 
 the state of things here if such a regulation were adopted ? 
 
 I would also proclaim to the people of India that we 
 would hold sacred that right of adoption which has 
 prevailed for centuries in that country. It was only 
 the other day that I had laid before me the case of a 
 Native Prince who has been most faithful to England 
 during these latter trials. When he came to the throne 
 at ten years of age he was made to sign a document, by 
 which he agreed that if he had no children his territories 
 should be at the disposal of the British Government, or 
 what was called the paramount power. He has been 
 married ; he has had one son and two or three daughters ; 
 but within the last few weeks his only son has died. 
 There is grief in the palace, and there is consternation 
 among the people, for the fact of this agreement 
 entered into by the boy of ten years old is well known 
 to all the inhabitants of the country. Representations 
 have already been made to this country in the hope 
 that the Government will cancel that agreement, and 
 allow the people of that State to know that the right of 
 adoption would not be taken from their Prince in case 
 he should have no other son. Let the Government do 
 that, and there is not a corner of India into which that 
 intelligence would not penetrate with the rapidity of 
 lightning. And would not that calm the anxieties of 
 many of those independent Princes and Rajahs who 
 are only afraid that when these troubles are over, the 
 English Government will recommence that system of 
 annexation out of which, I believe, all these troubles 
 have arisen ? 
 
 I would tell them also in that Proclamation, that 
 while the people of England hold that their own, the 
 Christian religion, is true and the best for mankind, yet 
 that it is consistent with that religion that they who 
 profess it should hold inviolable the rights of conscience 
 and the rights of religion in others. I would show, 
 
 b 2
 
 20 Bright's Speeches 
 
 that whatever violent, over-zealous, and fanatical men 
 may have said in this country, the Parliament of Eng- 
 land, the Ministers of the Queen, and the Queen herself, 
 are resolved that upon this point no kind of wrong should 
 be done to the millions who profess the religions held to 
 be true in India. I would do another thing. I would 
 establish a Court of Appeal, the Judges of which should 
 be Judges of the highest character in India, for the 
 settlement of those many disputes which have arisen 
 between the Government of India and its subjects, 
 some Native and some European. I would not suffer 
 these questions to come upon the floor of this House. 
 I would not forbid them by statute, but I would estab- 
 lish a Court which should render it unnecessary for any 
 man in India to cross the ocean to seek for that justice 
 which he would then be able to get in his own country 
 without corruption or secret bargain. Then I would 
 carry out the proposition which the noble Lord has 
 made to-night, and which the right hon. Gentleman the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer made when he introduced 
 his Bill, that a Commission should be issued to inquire 
 into the question of finance. I would have other com- 
 missions, one for each Presidency, and I would tell 
 the people of India that there should be a searching 
 inquiry into their grievances, and that it was the interest 
 and the will of the Queen of England that those 
 grievances should be redressed. 
 
 Now, perhaps I may be told that I am proposing 
 strange things, quite out of the ordinary routine of 
 government. I admit it. We are in a position that 
 necessitates something out of the ordinary routine. 
 There are positions and times in the history of every 
 country, as in the lives of individuals, when courage 
 and action are absolute salvation ; and now the Crown 
 of England, acting by the advice of the responsible 
 Ministers, must, in my opinion, have recourse to a 
 great and unusual measure in order to allay the 
 anxieties which prevail throughout the whole of India. 
 The people of India do not like us, but they scarcely 
 know where to turn if we left them. They are sheep 
 literally without a shepherd. They are people whom
 
 India 21 
 
 you have subdued, and who have the highest and 
 strongest claims upon you — claims which you cannot 
 forget — claims which, if you do not act upon, you may 
 rely upon it that, if there be a judgment for nations — as 
 I believe there is — as for individuals, our children in no 
 distant generation must pay the penalty which we have 
 purchased by neglecting our duty to the populations of 
 India. 
 
 I have now stated my views and opinions on this 
 question, not at all in a manner, I feel, equal to the 
 question itself. I have felt the difficulty in thinking of 
 it ; I feel the difficulty in speaking of it — for there is far 
 more in it and about it than any man, however much 
 he may be accustomed to think upon political questions, 
 and to discuss them, can comprise at all within the 
 compass of a speech of ordinary length. I have de- 
 scribed the measures which I would at once adopt for 
 the purpose of soothing the agitation which now dis- 
 turbs and menaces every part of India, and of inviting 
 the submission of those who are now in arms against 
 you. Now I believe — I speak in the most perfect 
 honesty — I believe that the announcement of these 
 measures would avail more in restoring tranquillity 
 than the presence of an additional army, and I believe 
 that their full and honest adoption would enable you to 
 retain your power in India. I have sketched the form 
 of government which I would establish in India and at 
 home, with the view of securing perfect responsibility 
 and an enlightened administration. I admit that these 
 things can only be obtained in degree, but I am con- 
 vinced that a Government such as that which I have 
 sketched would be free from most of the errors and the 
 vices that have marked and marred your past career in 
 India. I have given much study to this great and 
 solemn question. I entreat the House to study it not 
 only now, during the passing of this Bill, but after the 
 Session is over, and till we meet again next year, when 
 in all probability there must be further legislation upon 
 this great subject ; for I believe that upon this question 
 depends very much, for good or for evil, the future of 
 this country of which we are citizens, and which we all
 
 22 Bright's Speeches 
 
 regard and love so much. You have had enough of 
 military reputation on Eastern fields ; you have gathered 
 large harvests of that commodity, be it valuable or be it 
 worthless. I invite you to something better, and higher, 
 and holier than that ; I invite you to a glory not " fanned 
 by conquest's crimson wing," but based upon the solid 
 and lasting benefits which I believe the Parliament of 
 England can, if it will, confer upon the countless popu- 
 lations of India. 
 
 II 
 INDIA— II 
 
 (from hansard) 
 
 House of Commons, August i, 1859. 
 
 [On August 1 Sir Charles Wood made his financial statement on 
 India to the House of Commons. One of his proposals was 
 that the Government should be empowered to raise 5.000,000/. 
 in the United Kingdom in order to meet the demands of the 
 present year. The Loan Bill passed through both Houses.] 
 
 But there is another course that may fairly be recom- 
 mended. It is to take India as it is, the empire with all 
 your annexations as it stands, and to see if it is not pos- 
 sible to do something better with it than you have done 
 before, and to give it a chance in future years of redeem- 
 ing not only the character of the Government but its 
 financial and legislative position. The noble Lord 
 (Lord Stanley) says there cannot be any great diminu- 
 tion in the expenditure for the Civil Service of India ; 
 but I do not in the least agree with the Secretary for 
 India when he says that the gentlemen of the Civil 
 Service in that country are not overpaid. Every one 
 knows that they are overpaid ; except some very high- 
 salaried Bishops of whom we have heard, no men are so 
 grossly overpaid as the officials of the Civil Service in 
 India. The proof of this may be found everywhere. 
 Look at the Island of Ceylon ; there the duties are as 
 arduous and the climate as unfavourable as in India ; 
 yet the Government does not pay its officials there
 
 India 23 
 
 more than one-half or two-thirds of the salaries they 
 are paid in India. There are in India itself many 
 hundreds of Europeans, the officers of the Indian 
 army, all the Indian clergy, and missionaries ; there 
 are also English merchants, carrying on their busi- 
 ness at rates of profit not much exceeding the profits 
 made in this country. But the Civil Service of the 
 Indian Government, like everything privileged and 
 exclusive, is a pampered body ; and, notwithstanding it 
 has produced some few able men who have worthily 
 done their duty, I do not think the Civil Service of 
 India deserves the loud praise we have so frequently 
 heard awarded to it by speakers in this House. Now if 
 you could reduce the expense of the Civil Service by 
 any considerable amount, the best thing you could do 
 with the money would be to increase the establishment by 
 sending a greater number of competent persons as magis- 
 trates, collectors, and officials into the distant provinces, 
 and thereby double the facilities for good government in 
 those districts. If you could reduce the income of 
 the Civil Service one-half, you could for the same 
 money have a more efficient Service throughout India 
 than at present. You might not save money, but you 
 would get a more complete Service for it. 
 
 But the military question the House of Commons 
 will certainly have to take in hand ; though Secretaries 
 for India are afraid to grapple with it. I am not 
 astonished that they feel some hesitation in doing so, 
 for from every one connected with the Military Service 
 they would hear the strongest objections to reducing 
 the number of the troops. But let me ask the Com- 
 mittee to consider what it has just heard. Before the 
 Revolt the European troops in India numbered 45,000 
 and the Native troops 250,000; now the 45,000 European 
 troops are 110,000, and the 250,000 Native soldiers are 
 raised to 300,000. What was it that we heard during 
 the Indian Mutiny ; what was the cause of all the letters 
 that appeared in the newspapers ? Every man said 
 that the great evil was having a Native army far larger 
 than was required. That has been the source of peril, 
 and that was the real cause of the mutiny. Now we
 
 24 Bright's Speeches 
 
 have even a larger portion of this most perilous element 
 than we had before. The authorities of India do not 
 appear to have learnt anything from the mutiny, or they 
 have learnt that all that was said in this House and in 
 this country was untrue, because they have 50,000 more 
 Native troops than they had before the mutiny. There- 
 fore, the mode of argument appears to be this : A 
 Native army was the cause of the mutiny, the cause of 
 all our perils, and now it is necessary to have more of 
 it ; and, as that is the perilous element, of course 45,000 
 troops are not sufficient to keep them in check ; there- 
 fore, you have at present 110,000 ; and certain officers 
 who were examined, and the Commissioners who 
 reported, recommended that you should always have at 
 least 80,000 Europeans there. If we are only to have 
 one body of troops to watch another, it seems to me 
 there can be no hope of any diminution of our military 
 force, nor any real reduction in our expenditure. Why 
 is it that you require all this army ? Let me ask the 
 Committee to look at the matter as sensible men of 
 business. The Revolt, which has been such a terrible 
 affair, has been suppressed. It was suppressed mainly 
 by the 45,000 men in India, and not by the 110,000 
 you have succeeded in placing there at a later period. 
 More than that, there is not at the present moment any 
 alarming amount of dissatisfaction in India, or at least 
 the dissatisfied are dispirited, and have lost all hope of 
 resisting the power of England, and must for a long 
 period, I think, remain wholly dispirited. At the same 
 time, you have disarmed the people over a vast province. 
 There are millions of people in India, a great number of 
 whom were previously in possession of arms, who do 
 not now possess a single weapon. I have seen in the 
 last accounts, only a day or two since, a statement that 
 not less than 1,400 forts in the kingdom of Oude alone 
 have been destroyed, and we know that many more 
 have been destroyed in other parts. There is at this 
 moment no power for combined organized armed resist- 
 ance against you, except that which is in the Native 
 army, which the Indian Government has been building 
 up of late to a greater extent than ever.
 
 India 25 
 
 The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) spoke of one point — 
 the great importance of which I admit — the want of 
 confidence and sympathy that must have arisen between 
 the two races in consequence of the transactions of the 
 last two years. The shock of revolt must have created 
 great suspicion and hatred and fear, and there is nothing 
 out of which panic grows so easily as out of those con- 
 ditions. I believe that is the case in India, and perhaps 
 there are indications of something of the kind at home. 
 There is a panic, therefore, and neither the Governor- 
 General nor the Civil Service nor military officers can 
 make up their minds that they are safe, recollecting 
 the transactions of the past two years, in having a less 
 military force than we now have in India. But if you 
 ask those gentlemen they will never say they have 
 enough. There are Admirals here, as we know, who 
 are perfectly wild about ships, with whom arith- 
 metic on such a question goes for nothing. They 
 would show you in the clearest possible manner that 
 you have not ships enough. So also, although I am 
 glad to find not to the same extent, as to troops. Some 
 one said the other night, in answer to an hon. Gentle- 
 man, about an increased force of a particular kind, 
 " There is nothing like leather," and it is so. I say naval 
 officers and military officers are not the men to whom 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer should depute the 
 great and solemn duty of determining what amount 
 shall be expended for military purposes. There is not 
 a country in the world that would not have been bank- 
 rupt long since, and plunged into irretrievable ruin, if 
 the military authorities had been allowed to determine 
 the amount of military force to be kept up, and the 
 amount of revenue to be devoted to that purpose. 
 
 I have another objection to this great army, and I 
 now come to the question of policy, which, I am sorry 
 to say for India, has not been touched upon. I do not 
 think this is a question to be merely settled by a very 
 clever manner of giving the figures of the case. Those 
 figures depend upon the course you intend to pursue, 
 upon the policy which the Government intends to 
 adopt, in that country. With this great army two
 
 26 Bright's Speeches 
 
 things are certain — we can have no reform of any kind 
 in the Government of India, nor an improved conduct 
 on the part of the English in India towards the Natives 
 of India. With a power like this — 110,000 English 
 troops, with an English regiment within an hour's reach 
 of each civil servant, you will find that the supremacy 
 of the conquering race will be displayed in the most 
 offensive manner. 
 
 Everybody connected with India — the hon. Member 
 for Devonport (Sir Erskine Perry), the hon. Member 
 for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) — all who are connected 
 with India, know well that when the English were 
 feeble in India, when they had not a great army in the 
 field or a great revenue to support it, every Englishman 
 treated the Natives by whom he was surrounded rather 
 with the feeling that he was an intruder in the country, 
 and that it was not only proper but absolutely necessary 
 to deal in a conciliatory and just manner with the great 
 body of the Natives in India ; but precisely as our 
 power increased the conduct of our countrymen changed, 
 and I find in the excellent book of Mr. Shore that thirty 
 years ago he describes this as the very source of the 
 growing ill-feeling between the races in India. It has 
 grown from that time to this, until we have an irritation 
 and animosity which in our time, it may be, we shall 
 see very little removed, and which may perhaps never 
 be wholly allayed. A Government, then, with this 
 vast army, must always be in a difficulty. Lord 
 Canning — Lord anybody else — cannot turn his atten- 
 tion to anything but this wearing, exasperating question 
 of how money is to be got for the next quarter to pay 
 this army. He cannot turn his attention in any way 
 to reforms, and I am convinced that this House must 
 insist upon the Government reducing its army, what- 
 ever be the risk. A large army will render it impossible 
 for you to hold the country, for you will have a con- 
 stantly increasing debt, and anarchy must inevitably 
 overwhelm you in the end. A small army, a moderate, 
 conciliatory, and just Government, with the finances in 
 a prosperous condition ; — and I know not but that this 
 country may possess for generations and centuries a
 
 India 27 
 
 share, and a large share, in the government of those 
 vast territories which it has conquered. 
 
 As to measures of reduction, I admit that it is of 
 little use attempting them unless they are accompanied 
 by other changes. Here I have a charge to bring 
 against the Indian Government. I did hope when the 
 noble Lord spoke to-night that he would have told us 
 something which I am sure he must have known ; that 
 there is no such thing as a real Government in India at 
 all ; that there is no responsibility either to a public 
 opinion there, or to a public opinion at home ; and that 
 therefore we cannot expect a better policy or happier 
 results. Let hon. Gentlemen imagine a Government 
 like that in India, over which the payers of the taxes 
 have not the slightest control ; for the great body of 
 the people in India have, as we all know, no control in 
 any way over the Government. Neither is there any 
 independent English opinion that has any control over 
 the Government, the only opinions being those of the 
 Government itself, or those of the Military and Civil 
 Services, and chiefly of the latter. They are not the 
 payers of taxes ; they are the spenders and the enjoyers 
 of the taxes, and therefore the Government in India is 
 in the most unfortunate position possible for the fulfil- 
 ment of the great duties that must devolve upon every 
 wise and just Government. The Civil Service, being 
 privileged, is arrogant, and I had almost said tyrannous, 
 as any one may see who reads the Indian papers, which 
 mainly represent the opinion of that Service and the 
 Military Service, which, as everywhere else where it is 
 not checked by the resolution of the taxpayers and 
 civilians, is clamorous and insatiable for greater expen- 
 diture. The Governor-General himself — and I do not 
 make any attack upon Lord Canning, although I could 
 conceive a Governor- General more suited to his great 
 and difficult position — he is a creature of these very 
 
 Services. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley) did an 
 excellent thing. He did honour to himself by appoint- 
 ing a man of a new sort as Governor of Madras. I
 
 28 Bright's Speeches 
 
 have not much acquaintance with Sir C. Trevelyan, but 
 I believe him to be a very intelligent man and very 
 earnest for the good of India. But he finds that at 
 Madras he is like a man who is manacled, as all the 
 Governors are. He is able to do almost nothing. But 
 he has a spirit above being the passive instrument for 
 doing nothing in the hands of the Governor-General, 
 and he has been disposed to make several changes 
 which have looked exceedingly heterodox to those who 
 are connected with the old Government of India, and 
 which have shocked the nerves of the fifteen old gentle- 
 men who meet in Leadenhall Street, and their brethren 
 in India. I find that among the changes endeavoured 
 to be effected by Sir C. Trevelyan, the following are 
 enumerated : He has endeavoured to conciliate the 
 Natives by abolishing certain ceremonial distinctions 
 which were supposed to degrade them when visiting 
 the Government House; he has shown that personal 
 courtesy to them which appears to be too much 
 neglected in India ; he has conspicuously rewarded 
 those who have rendered services to the State ; he has 
 made one of the Natives his aide-de-camp ; he has 
 endeavoured to improve the land tenure, to effect a 
 settlement of the Enam, and to abolish the impress of 
 cattle and carts. He has also abolished three-fourths, 
 or perhaps more, of the paper work of the public 
 servants. He also began the great task of judicial 
 reform, than which none is more urgently pressing. 
 But what is said of Sir C. Trevelyan for instituting 
 these reforms? He has raised a hornets' nest about 
 him. Those who surround the Governor-General at 
 Calcutta say, " We might as well have the Governors 
 of the Presidencies independent, if they are to do as 
 they like without consulting the Governor-General as 
 has been done in past times." The Friend of India is a 
 journal not particularly scrupulous in supporting the 
 Calcutta Government, but it has a horror of any 
 Government of India except that of the Governor- 
 General and the few individuals who surround him. A 
 writer in the Friend of India says : 
 " Sir C. Trevelyan relies doubtless on Lord Stanley,
 
 India 29 
 
 and we do not dream of denying that the Secretary of 
 State has provocation enough to excuse the unusual 
 course he seems obliged to pursue. To send a reform 
 to Calcutta is, at present, simply to lay it aside. It will 
 probably not even be answered for two years, certainly 
 not carried in five. Even when sanctioned, it will have 
 to pass through a crucible through which no plan can 
 escape entire. That weary waiting for Calcutta, of 
 which all men, from Lord Stanley to the people of 
 Singapore, now bitterly complain, may well tempt the 
 Secretary to carry on his plans by the first mode offered 
 to his hand." 
 
 Here are only a dozen lines from a long article, 
 and there are other articles in the same paper to 
 the same purport. I think, then, that I am justified 
 in condemning any Secretary for India who contents 
 himself with giving us the figures necessary to show 
 the state of the finances, which any clerk in the office 
 could have done, and abstains from going into the 
 questions of the government of India and that policy 
 upon which alone you can base any solid hope of an 
 improvement in the condition of that country. 
 
 There is another point I would mention. The 
 Governor-General of India goes out knowing little or 
 nothing of India. I know exactly what he does when 
 he is appointed. He shuts himself up to study the first 
 volumes of Mr. Mill's " History of India," and he reads 
 through this laborious work without nearly so much 
 effect in making him a good Governor-General as a man 
 might ignorantly suppose. He goes to India, a country 
 of twenty nations, speaking twenty languages. He 
 knows none of those nations, and he has not a glimmer 
 of the grammar and pronunciation or meaning of those 
 languages. He is surrounded by half-a-dozen or a 
 dozen gentlemen who have been from fifteen to forty 
 years in that country, and who have scrambled from the 
 moderate but sure allowance with which they began in 
 the Service to the positions they now occupy. He knows 
 nothing of the country or the people, and they are 
 really unknown to the Government of India. To this 
 hour the present Governor-General has not travelled
 
 o 
 
 o Bright's Speeches 
 
 through any considerable portion of the territory of 
 India. If he did, he would have to pay an increased 
 insurance upon his life for travelling through a country 
 in which there are very few roads and no bridges at all. 
 Observe the position, then, in which the Governor- 
 General is placed. He is surrounded by an official 
 circle, he breathes an official air, and everything is dim 
 or dark beyond it. You lay duties upon him which are 
 utterly beyond the mental or bodily strength of any 
 man who ever existed, and which he cannot therefore 
 adequately perform. 
 
 Turning from the Governor-General to the Civil 
 Service, see how short the period is in which your 
 servants in that country remain in any particular office. 
 You are constantly criticizing the bad customs of the 
 United States, where every postmaster and many other 
 officers lose their situations, and where others are ap- 
 pointed whenever a new President is elected. You 
 never make blunders like the United States, and you 
 will therefore be surprised at a statement given in 
 evidence by Mr. Underhill, the Secretary of the Baptist 
 Missionary Society. He says that in certain districts 
 in Bengal there are three or four Englishmen to 
 1,000,000 inhabitants, and that the magistrates are 
 perpetually moving about. I have here the names of 
 several gentlemen cited. Mr. Henry Lushington went 
 to India in 1821, and remained till 1842. During these 
 twenty-one years he filled twenty-one different offices ; 
 he went to Europe twice, being absent from India not less 
 than four and a quarter years. Upon an average, there- 
 fore, he held his twenty-one offices not more than nine 
 months each. Mr. J. P. Grant was Governor of Bengal. 
 That was so good a place that he remained stationary 
 in it. But he went to India in 1828 and remained there 
 until 1 841. In those thirteen years he held twenty- 
 four different situations, being an average of less than 
 six months for each. Mr. Charles Grant — and I may 
 say that Grant is a name which for three or four genera- 
 tions has been found everywhere in India — he was 
 in India from 1829 to 1842, and in those thirteen years 
 he filled seventeen offices, being an average of only
 
 India 31 
 
 eight months for each office. Mr. Halliday, Governor 
 of Bengal, went to India in 1825, and remained until 
 1843. In those eighteen years he held twenty-one 
 offices, and he did not become stationary until he was 
 accredited to the lucrative and great office of Governor 
 of Bengal. 
 
 I think these facts show that there is something in 
 the arrangements of the Indian Government which 
 makes it no Government at all, except for the purpose 
 of raising money and spending taxes. It is no Govern- 
 ment for watching over the people and conferring upon 
 them those blessings which we try to silence our con- 
 sciences by believing the British Government is estab- 
 lished in India to promote. What can a Governor- 
 General do with such a Council, and with servants who 
 are ever changing in all the departments ? I am not 
 stating my own opinion, but what is proved by the 
 blue-books. Mr. Halliday stated that the police of 
 Bengal were more feared than the thieves and dacoits. 
 But how is this Government, so occupied and so 
 embarrassed, to be expected to put the police on a 
 satisfactory footing ? With regard to justice, I might 
 appeal to any gentleman who has been in India 
 whether, for the most part, the Judges in the Company's 
 Courts are not without training, and if they are with- 
 out training, whether they will not probably be without 
 law. The delay is something of which we can have no 
 conception, even with our experience of the Court of 
 Chancery in this country. Perjury and wrong are 
 universal wherever the Courts of the Company's Service 
 have been established in India. Of their taxation we 
 hear enough to-night. It is clumsy and unscientific. 
 In their finance there is such confusion that the Govern- 
 ment proposes to send out somebody, not to raise 
 revenue, not to spend it, but somebody who will be 
 able to tell you how it is raised and spent, for that is 
 what you want to know. They have no system of 
 book-keeping whatever. The Secretary of State gives 
 us a statement of revenue and expenditure up to the 30th 
 of April, 1858, sixteen months back, and even for the year 
 preceding he can only furnish what he calls an " esti-
 
 32 Bright's Speeches 
 
 mate." Would any other Legislative Assembly in the 
 whole world, except this, tolerate such a state of things ? 
 I did try myself several years ago to get a statement of 
 the accounts up to a later period ; but I found it was of 
 no use. They ought to be brought up to a later 
 period ; the thing is quite within the range of possi- 
 bility ; it is simply not done because there is no proper 
 system of book-keeping, and no one responsible for 
 doing it. 
 
 You have no Government in India ; you have no 
 financial statement; you have no system of book-keeping ; 
 no responsibility ; and everything goes to confusion and 
 ruin because there is such a Government, or no Govern- 
 ment, and the English House of Commons has not 
 taken the pains to reform these things. The Secretary 
 of State to-night points to the increase in the English 
 trade. In that trade I am myself interested, and I am 
 delighted to see that increase ; but it should be borne in 
 mind that just now it is not a natural increase, and 
 therefore not certain to be permanent. If you are 
 spending so many millions in railroads and in carrying 
 on war — that is, 22,000,000/. for your armaments in 
 India instead of 12,000,000/. — is not that likely to make 
 a great difference in your pbwer to import more largely 
 from this country ? Do not we know that when the 
 Government of the day was pouring English treasure 
 into the Crimea the trade with the Levant was most 
 materially increased ? And, therefore, I say it will be 
 a delusion for the right hon. Gentleman to expect that 
 the extraordinary increase which has taken place within 
 the last three years will go on in future in the same 
 proportion. 
 
 Now, the point which I wish to bring before the 
 Committee and the Government is this, because it is on 
 this that I rely mainly — I think I may say almost 
 entirely — for any improvement in the future of India. 
 It would be impertinent to take up the time of the 
 Committee by merely cavilling at what other people 
 have said, and pointing out their errors and blunders, if 
 I had no hope of being able to suggest any improve- 
 ment in the existing state of things. I believe a great
 
 India 33 
 
 improvement may be made, and by a gradual progress 
 that will dislocate nothing. I dare say it may dis- 
 appoint some individuals, but where it will disappoint 
 one man in India it will please a thousand. What you 
 want is to decentralize your Government. I hold it to 
 be manifestly impossible to govern 150,000,000 of 
 persons, composing twenty different nations, speaking 
 as many different languages, by a man who knows 
 nothing of India, assisted by half a dozen councillors 
 belonging to a privileged order, many of whom have 
 had very little experience in India, except within 
 narrow limits, and whose experience never involved 
 the consideration and settlement of great questions of 
 statesmanship. If you could have an independent 
 Government in India for every 20,000,000 of its people, 
 I do not hesitate to say, though we are so many 
 thousand miles away, that there are Englishmen who, 
 settling down among those 20,000,000 of people, would 
 be able to conduct the Government of that particular 
 province on conditions wholly different and immeasur- 
 ably better than anything in the way of administration 
 which we have ever seen in India. 
 
 If I were Secretary of State for India, — but as I am 
 not, I will recommend the right hon. Gentleman to do 
 that which I would do myself, or I would not hold his 
 office for one month ; because, to hold office and come 
 before the House Session after Session with a gloomy 
 statement, and with no kind of case to show that you 
 are doing anything for India, or that you are justified in 
 holding possession of it at all, is nothing but to receive 
 a salary and to hold a dignity without any adequate 
 notion of the high responsibility attaching to them. I 
 am not blaming the right hon. Gentleman in particular ; 
 he is only doing what all his predecessors before him 
 have done. There has been no real improvement since 
 I have sat in Parliament in the government of India, 
 and I believe the Bill of last year is not one whit better 
 for purposes of administration than any that has gone 
 before. But I would suggest to the right hon. Gentle- 
 man, whether it would not be a good thing to bring in a 
 Bill to extend and define the powers of the Governors of 
 
 c
 
 34 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the various Presidencies in India ? I do not ask the 
 right hon. Gentleman to turn out the fifteen gentlemen 
 who assist him in Leadenhall Street to vegetate on 
 their pensions, but I ask him to go to India and to take 
 the Presidency of Madras for an instance. Let arrange- 
 ments be made by which that Presidency shall be in a 
 position to correspond directly with him in this country, 
 and let every one connected with that Government of 
 Madras feel that, with regard to the interests and the 
 people of that Presidency, they will be responsible for 
 their protection. At present there is no sort of tie be- 
 tween the governors and the governed. Why is it that 
 we should not do for Madras what has been done for 
 the Island of Ceylon ? I am not about to set up the 
 Council of Ceylon as a model institution — it is far from 
 that ; but I will tell you what it is, and you will see 
 that it would not be a difficult thing to make the change 
 I propose. The other day I asked a gentleman holding 
 an office in the Government, and who had lived some 
 years in Ceylon, what was the state of the Council ? 
 He said it was composed of sixteen members, of whom 
 six were non-official and independent, and the Governor 
 had always a majority. He added that at the present 
 moment in that Council there was one gentleman, a 
 pure Cingalese by birth and blood, another a Brahmin, 
 another a half-caste, whose father was a Dutchman and 
 whose mother was a Native, and three others who were 
 either English merchants or planters. The Council has 
 not much prestige, and therefore it is not easy to induce 
 merchants in the interior to be members and to under- 
 take its moderate duties ; but the result is that this 
 Cingalese, this Brahmin, this half-caste, and these three 
 Englishmen, although they cannot out-vote Sir H. 
 Ward, the Governor, are able to discuss questions of 
 public interest in the eye and the ear of the public, and 
 to tell what the independent population want, and so to 
 form a representation of public opinion in the Council, 
 which I will undertake to say, although so inefficient, is 
 yet of high importance in the satisfactory government 
 of that island. Why is it that we can have nothing 
 like this in the Councils of Madras or Bombay ? It
 
 India 35 
 
 would be an easy thing to do, and I believe that an Act 
 of Parliament which would do it would lay the founda- 
 tion of the greatest reform that has yet taken place in 
 India. At present all the Governors are in fetters ; and 
 I see that blame has been imputed to Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan for endeavouring to break through those 
 fetters. No doubt an attempt will be made to have him 
 recalled, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, 
 while he moderates the ardour of the Governor so far 
 as to prevent a rebellion among the civilians, will sup- 
 port him honestly and faithfully in all those changes 
 which the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do 
 are essential to the improvement of the government of 
 
 that country. 
 
 * " * * * * 
 
 In speaking on this subject I have nothing new to 
 offer to the attention of the House. I have propounded 
 the very same theories and remedies years ago. They 
 are not my remedies and theories. I am not the 
 inventor of local government for India ; but the more 
 I have considered the subject — the more I have dis- 
 cussed it with the Members of this House and with 
 gentlemen connected with India — the more I am con- 
 vinced that you will not make a single step towards the 
 improvement of India unless you change your whole 
 system of government — unless you give to each Presi- 
 dency a government with more independent powers 
 than are now possessed by it. What would be thought 
 if the whole of Europe was under one governor, who 
 knew only the language of the Feejee Islands, and that 
 his subordinates were like himself, only more intelligent 
 than the inhabitants of the Feejee Islands are supposed 
 to be ? You set a governor over 150,000,000 of human 
 beings, in a climate where the European cannot do the 
 work he has to do so well as here, where neither the 
 moral nor physical strength of the individual is equal 
 to what it is at home — and you do not even always 
 furnish the most powerful men for the office; — you seem 
 to think that the atmosphere will be always calm and 
 the sea always smooth. And so the government of 
 India goes on ; there are promises without number of 
 
 c 2
 
 36 Bright's Speeches 
 
 beneficial changes, but we never hear that India is much 
 better or worse than before. Now, that is not the way 
 to do justice to a great empire like India. If there had 
 been a better government in India, the late disturbances 
 among your own troops would not have happened ; and 
 I own I tremble when I reflect that every post may 
 bring us, in the present temper of the European troops 
 in India, some dire intelligence of acts which they may 
 have committed, because they may think that this is a 
 convenient opportunity for pressing some great claim 
 of their own. 
 
 I beg the Committee to consider this matter, not- 
 withstanding that the right hon. Gentleman is not dis- 
 posed to take a gloomy view of the state of India. 
 Look at your responsibilities. India is ruled by Eng- 
 lishmen, but remember that in that unfortunate country 
 you have destroyed every form of government but^our 
 own ; that you have cast the thrones of the Natives to 
 the ground. Princely families, once the rulers of India, 
 are now either houseless wanderers in the land they 
 once called their own, or are pensioners on the bounty 
 of those strangers by whom their fortunes have been 
 overthrown. They who were noble and gentle for ages 
 are now merged in the common mass of the people. 
 All over those vast regions there are countless millions, 
 helpless and defenceless, deprived of their natural 
 leaders and their ancient chiefs, looking with only some 
 small ray of hope to that omnipresent and irresistible 
 Power by which they have been subjected. I appeal to 
 you on behalf of that people. I have besought your 
 mercy and your justice for many a year past ; and if I 
 speak to you earnestly now, it is because the object for 
 which I plead is dear to my heart. Is it not possible 
 to touch a chord in the hearts of Englishmen, to raise 
 them to a sense of the miseries inflicted on that un- 
 happy country by the crimes and the blunders of our 
 rulers here ? If you have steeled your hearts against 
 the Natives, if nothing can stir you to sympathy with 
 their miseries, at least have pity upon your own country- 
 men. Rely upon it, the state of things which now exists 
 in India must, before long, become most serious. I
 
 India 37 
 
 hope that you will not show to the world that, although 
 your fathers conquered the country, you have not the 
 ability to govern it. You had better disencumber your- 
 selves of the fatal gift of empire than that the present 
 generation should be punished for the sins of the past. 
 I speak in condemnatory language, because I believe it 
 to be deserved. I hope that no future historian will 
 have to say that the arms of England in India were 
 irresistible, and that an ancient empire fell before their 
 victorious progress, — yet that finally India was avenged, 
 because the power of her conqueror was broken by the 
 intolerable burdens and evils which she cast upon her 
 victim, and that this wrong was accomplished by a 
 waste of human life and a waste of wealth which 
 England, with all her power, was unable to bear. 
 
 Ill 
 INDIA— III. : IRRIGATION 
 
 Manchester, December ir, 1877. 
 
 [At this time Sir Arthur Cotton was on a visit to Manchester, and 
 the members of the Indian Association in that city convened 
 a meeting in the large room of the Town Hall, with a view of 
 hearing the opinions which Sir Arthur entertained as to the 
 means of preventing famine in India for the future. Mr. 
 Bright was invited to be present and to speak on the subject. 
 The new buildings of the Manchester Corporation were used 
 for the first time on this occasion. 
 
 I thank you, as I ought, for the kind words which the 
 Mayor has spoken in my behalf, and for the cordial 
 reception which you have given me. It is to my mind 
 a very remarkable meeting. The place is remarkable, 
 and the occasion is in accordance with the place. We 
 are in the centre of this great city, which is the centre 
 of a great industry. We are here on the principal 
 market or business day of the week, and we have before 
 us a very large number of persons who on ordinary 
 occasions are engaged with their business, and are not 
 meeting to discuss great social or political questions. I
 
 38 Bright's Speeches 
 
 ask myself this — What is it that has brought these men 
 together in this remarkable place at this remarkable 
 time ? Is it some common question which has excited 
 your enthusiasm or your interest, or is it some question 
 greater than any probably that has ever heretofore been 
 submitted to your attention ? We are here to discuss 
 matters interesting — intensely interesting — to the people 
 of England, if they knew their own interests, and in- 
 tensely interesting also to what we call our Indian 
 Empire, which is a country so vast that nobody has 
 any acquaintance with the whole of it ; a country so 
 peopled that no census can give us an accurate account 
 of its populations ; a country which has, according to 
 the best authorities, a population of 250,000,000 men, 
 women, and children, who owe directly and indirectly 
 some sort of allegiance to the Queen of this nation. 
 The population of India is five times the population of 
 the whole of the rest of the British Empire, and we 
 may consider for a moment how we came into this 
 position in India. It is not by the ordinary course of a 
 long succession that the Crown of England has power 
 in India. It is not that we have held India by cen- 
 turies of undisputed possession. Our power there is 
 little more than a century old, and the empire has been 
 built up by means which I am afraid have been instru- 
 mental in building up almost all great empires, by 
 ambition, and crime, and conquest. We claim to be 
 now what is called the paramount power over a popula- 
 tion equal to one-sixth of the whole population of the 
 globe, and we hold this rule by a mere handful — shall 
 I say, of Englishmen ? — -well, of men from these 
 islands, backed by an army of 60,000 British troops. 
 With regard to revenues, we receive something like 
 50,000,000/. a year in India, which is principally gathered 
 from its people in the shape of taxes, but which in- 
 cludes also a considerable sum procured from the 
 Chinese from a monopoly in opium. We claim the 
 ownership of all the land, and the Government fixes, 
 for the most part, what rent it chooses to receive ; 
 which is generally, I am sorry to say, the utmost it can 
 compel. We impose taxes, import duties, as you know,
 
 India 39 
 
 stamp duties, and some other duties ; but, above all, 
 we levy a salt duty, one which is highly productive, 
 but extremely oppressive, to the poor bitterly cruel, to 
 gather which we send the tax gatherer into the humblest 
 hovel in that vast empire. But you must remember 
 that all this great population has no voice on its own 
 affairs. It is dumb before the power that has subjected 
 it. It is never consulted upon any matter connected 
 with its government. It is subject to the power that 
 rules over it in a manner that cannot be said of the 
 population of any civilized or Christian people in the 
 world. We raise revenue ; we create patronage ; we 
 pay salaries and pensions, and we trade extensively with 
 the country. You have known, or at any rate you 
 have heard in past times of the riches of India. In 
 fact, within the last hundred years, whenever the word 
 India was mentioned, there was a floating vision of vast 
 wealth passed before the eye and the understanding. I 
 recollect one of our poets — James Montgomery, I think 
 — begins a poem in these words : 
 
 " Blow, ye breezes, gently blowing, 
 Waft me to that happy shore 
 Where, from fountains ever flowing, 
 Indian realms their treasures pour." 
 
 And yet there is nothing in the world more clear than 
 this, that India is essentially a country at this moment 
 of great and abject poverty, and that the reputation of 
 its wealth has only been founded upon the fact that it is 
 a country which marauders have always found it easy 
 to plunder. 
 
 In this country about which I am speaking there 
 have been famines of a destructive and appalling char- 
 acter, and we are met here to-day for the purpose of 
 discussing how those famines have arisen, and whether 
 it be within the power of human benevolence and states- 
 manship to put an end to them in future. England for the 
 most part has taken no note of those famines. India is 
 a long way off. It was a very long way when people 
 went round by the Cape. It is far off on the map, 
 although by the wire you speak with it in a few minutes,
 
 4o Bright's Speeches 
 
 and you receive an answer in a few hours. But Eng- 
 land took no note of this distant country until there 
 came the calamity of the mutiny, when England suf- 
 fered greatly, and passed through a great humiliation — 
 for it is a humiliation to any Government that its sub- 
 jects, and especially that its army, should turn against 
 it. But when the mutiny took place the East India 
 Company fell. If we had discussed India, or the 
 character of the East India Company, in the House of 
 Commons twelve months before the mutiny, the Pre- 
 sident of the Board of Control, or what is now the 
 Secretary of State for India, would have delivered you 
 a speech an hour long in praise of the wisdom and 
 success of the government of the Company. I took 
 great pains to show that these praises were not de- 
 served, and I urged for years that the Company should 
 be abolished. When the mutiny came in 1857 there 
 was nobody to say anything, or hardly anything, for 
 the Company, and that famous old institution tumbled 
 over at once, and it had scarcely a friend or a single 
 element of power left in it. 
 
 We are now in view of another great calamity — the 
 calamity of famine — and I trust that we shall find that 
 not only Parliament but the whole people of England 
 will be willing to give a fair and honest attention to the 
 question that we are here to discuss to-day, and which 
 must before long be discussed in many parts of the 
 country, and also on the floor of Parliament. What 
 are these famines ? Some of them you have never 
 heard of, or if you have you do not remember them. 
 There was a famine in 1837-8, which affected 8,000,000 
 of people, 5,000,000 with great severity, during which 
 no less than 800,000 persons died of famine, more than 
 half as many again as all the men, women, and children 
 of this great city in which we are assembled, and the 
 people of England scarcely heard anything of it, except- 
 ing now and then in a paragraph extracted from an 
 Indian paper. In 1 860-1 there was another famine. 
 There were 13,000,000 affected, 5,000,000 suffered in- 
 tensely. The mortality, as far as I have searched for 
 it, is not on record, but I do not think there is any
 
 India 4 1 
 
 reason to believe it was any smaller than in the previous 
 famine. In 1863 there came the famine in Bengal and 
 Orissa, and one quarter of the population died in soma 
 of the districts. The total amount of the deaths was 
 enormous. Nearly the whole of the labouring popula- 
 tion was swept away over large districts of country 
 during the pressure of that calamity. In 1868-9 
 occurred the great famine in Rajpootana and the dis- 
 tricts around it. One hundred thousand square miles, 
 or one-sixth of the whole area of the country, was more 
 or less affected by this famine, and 1,250,000 persons 
 are admitted by the Government estimate to have 
 perished of hunger. In 1877, the present year, it is 
 estimated that more than 500,000 people — that is, more 
 than all the population of this great city — have died, and 
 those who die, or the figures of those who died, do not 
 represent the whole calamity. There are multitudes 
 who die afterwards, who suffer and linger, who know 
 never again a day's good health, and whose names are 
 not on the record which tells us of the mortality of the 
 famine. And then there is the loss of cattle. It is 
 enormous. The loss of cattle in a country altogether 
 agricultural of course must be the loss of the principal 
 source of wealth. 
 
 The loss of produce, the loss of revenue to the 
 Government, the loss of trade, all this is absolutely 
 beyond calculation, and if one could add all these losses 
 together and show you how much it was, you would 
 find that all the money which Sir Arthur Cotton pro- 
 poses to have expended in the moments of his greatest 
 hope— or, if you like, his greatest enthusiasm — would 
 be a mere trifle to that which has been sacrificed by 
 these famines, which might probably have altogether 
 been prevented. Sir A. Cotton referred to the number 
 of persons supposed to have died. 1 was reading the 
 oiiver day a very interesting pamphlet by Mr. R. 
 Elliott, who has been a planter in India, and is well 
 acquainted with many parts of the country. This was 
 published several years ago. Mr. Elliott said that 
 within ten years more than 2,800,000, nearly 3,000,000 
 persons, had been proved to have died from famine, and
 
 42 Bright's Speeches 
 
 this year we have added to the number another 500,000. 
 Now, the question is, How long is this to go on ? What 
 are we to say of a Government which has all this 
 passing under its eye from year to year, and all that I 
 have described within the last ten or fifteen years, and 
 makes no strong and resolute effort to meet it ? Look 
 at its effect upon the Government and upon the people. 
 India is poor. Its taxation has almost reached its 
 limits ; it is so high that you cannot turn the screw a 
 bit more. There has been very frequently and for 
 many years a deficit when the annual expenses are 
 made up. Bankruptcy is threatening the country. 
 There is the loss of credit to the Government ; and yet 
 no Governor-General in India with his Council, no 
 Indian Secretary in London with his cumbrous and 
 burdensome Council, not one of these great personages 
 who are connected with the Government of India, steps 
 forward resolutely with intelligence and force and 
 courage to say that these great calamities, so injurious 
 to India, so perilous and humiliating to England, shall, 
 if possible, for ever be put an end to. 
 
 Now we come to the question whether there be any 
 remedy. There are some misfortunes of such a nature, 
 that the moment you find the cause you find the remedy. 
 If a man suffers from hunger you give him something 
 to eat. I think Daniel O'Connell said, when some one 
 complained that his horse was starving, " Have you 
 tried corn ?" The calamity which you hear of in India 
 is that famine is there, and that the famine arises from 
 drought ; that there is a lack of water, or at least a lack 
 of water in the right place and at the right time. There 
 is always soil, and there is always sun, and there is 
 always rain ; but the rain does not always fall when you 
 want it, and it is not at the particular time just as much 
 or as little as you want it. But if you have soil, and 
 sun, and water, and human labour, you may have rich 
 harvests throughout a great portion of India. Now 
 that is a very simple doctrine, which I suppose few 
 people will be disposed to dispute. But with the rain- 
 fall there is some difficulty, because the rain comes down 
 there sometimes in profuse quantities. It does not rain,
 
 India 43 
 
 as we say here, cats and dogs, but I suppose tigers and 
 lions, or anything else you may use as an illustration. 
 But sometimes the heavens are as brass, and there is 
 no rain, not only for weeks but for months. 
 
 Now, what is the remedy ? Everybody has known 
 the remedy for centuries. If you had before you, as I 
 have seen, an ancient map of the Presidency of Madras, 
 you would think there was no dry land for the people 
 to live upon, the map is so marked with tanks. You 
 will understand that what Sir Arthur Cotton means by 
 tanks is not the sort of thing we call a tank here ; but 
 it is a large reservoir, sometimes of miles in extent, 
 and like some of our greatest lakes. Well, this map of 
 Madras is marked out with these tanks or reservoirs 
 from north to south and from east to west, and it shows 
 that the rulers of the people of those ancient days had 
 just the same evil to contend with that we have, and 
 that they manfully did their best to subdue it. 
 
 Our Government knows perfectly well what is the 
 remedy, but what do they do ? Whenever there is a 
 famine they begin to think about some manner of irri- 
 gating that particular district. They generally wait 
 until the horse is stolen before they lock the stable door. 
 I give you an extract here. I quote from an interesting 
 article in the Fortnightly Review by Colonel Chesney, 
 who by many persons will be admitted to be a great 
 authority. He says, " The Ganges canal was the out- 
 come of the great famine of 1833 ; the new project in 
 the Doab of the famine of 1861 ; the Orissa works of 
 that of 1866." He says, " Oude has escaped famine so 
 far, and in Oude no irrigation works have been con- 
 structed." And then he goes on to say that the Indian 
 Government is very like a father who spends a great 
 deal on the doctor or the nurse, if his child is ill and 
 ready to die, but in ordinary times does not take the 
 smallest care of him whatever, or teach him anything 
 with regard to the preservation of his own health. 
 That is the policy which the India Company in past 
 times pursued, and which the Indian Government is yet 
 pursuing for the most part with regard to that very 
 large child it has the care of — the 250,000,000 of people
 
 44 Bright's Speeches 
 
 in our Indian Empire. Now, I have given you the 
 opinion of Colonel Chesney. I might give you one or 
 two others, but I will not trouble you with quotations, 
 for I do not think the question requires it. Sir Charles 
 Trevelyan, who is one of the most intelligent men who 
 have been connected with the Indian Government, and 
 who has been Governor of the province of Madras, on 
 hearing a paper read by Sir Arthur Cotton, said he was 
 satisfied that with a thorough system of irrigation 
 famines would be impossible in India. Speaking of 
 what Sir Arthur Cotton had done on the Godavery and 
 Kistna he says, " If all India were treated in the same 
 way, famines would be impossible." Next I give you 
 the opinion of Sir Bartle Frere, a very distinguished 
 Indian servant of the Crown, who has now been sent 
 out, as you know, as the Governor of the South African 
 dominions of the Crown — the Cape of Good Hope. 
 He says : 
 
 " It is the fashion to deny the facts regarding the re- 
 sults of the irrigation works on which Sir Arthur 
 Cotton's calculations are based, but I feel certain that 
 the more they are tested the more clearly will it be seen 
 that in no other way can money be so advantageously 
 expended with a view to future production and cheap 
 supply as in great works of irrigation and internal navi- 
 gation." 
 
 Now, I have given you the opinions of three persons. 
 I might keep you here an hour in reading the opinions 
 of men almost equally distinguished, and to the same 
 purport. So I take it for granted that when we have 
 the judgment of past Governments — I mean the ancient 
 Governments of India; the judgment of our own 
 Government of India, when a calamity occurs ; the 
 opinion of Colonel Chesney, of Sir Charles Trevelyan, 
 of Sir Bartle Frere, of Sir Arthur Cotton, and I venture 
 to say, also, the unanimous opinion of all the intelligent 
 engineers who are connected with India, we must come 
 to this one conclusion — that as we have found out what 
 is the malady under which these people die, we have 
 also found out the remedy by which they might, if it 
 had been applied, have been kept alive.
 
 India 45 
 
 They say that Sir Arthur Cotton is an enthusiast. 
 Well, we have all been enthusiasts in our time, and the 
 world would be a dull world if there were no real and 
 honest enthusiasm in it. But Sir Arthur Cotton is not 
 surpassed by any man in the Indian service for long ex- 
 perience and for great success in the works in which he 
 has been connected and which he has undertaken. He 
 has broader and grander views than some of his com- 
 petitors, or some of his fellow - officers, or of those 
 connected with the Government. But he knows that 
 this is a great question, that India is a great country, 
 that 250,000,000 of people are a great people ; and 
 therefore he thinks that a broader and a grander policy 
 is necessary. Why is it that the Governor-General of 
 India and his Council in Calcutta, and Lord Salisbury, 
 and those who have preceded him as Secretaries of 
 State for India in England, and his Council — why is it 
 that they regard this question with so little favour ? 
 They are always on the brink of bankruptcy ; the 
 Government wrings whatever it can from the people — 
 it takes every farthing it can get from them. It is ad- 
 mitted that taxation cannot be carried to a higher limit, 
 and yet all that they get from taxation is not enough 
 to spend, for they spend more than 6,000,000/. or 
 7,000,000/. which comes to them from the sale of 
 monopoly opium in China. They have spent all this 
 for years past ; and besides spending that, they have 
 incurred a debt, say of 100,000,000/. sterling. There- 
 fore they are always in terror of a bankrupt exchequer, 
 and they turn their backs upon anybody who proposes 
 that they should deal largely with any question, how- 
 ever important, if it requires that there should be a 
 considerable or a large expenditure. 
 
 Now the question, in my opinion, is very much too 
 great for the officials at Calcutta. You know that a 
 new Governor- General of India is sent out from this 
 country about every five years. As a rule, as far as my 
 experience goes, these gentlemen do not know any 
 more than the majority of their own class in society 
 know upon this question. They begin, the moment 
 they are appointed, to read " Mill's British India." I
 
 46 Bright's Speeches 
 
 met — I do not know whether I have stated this before 
 in public, but I recollect meeting a Governor-General 
 with whom I was acquainted, just after he was ap- 
 pointed. I met him at Euston Station in London, and 
 I observed that he had got a book under his arm, and 
 was hurrying away. I spoke to him and said, " If I 
 were in the habit of laying wagers I would lay a wager 
 that I could tell the name of the book under your arm." 
 Well, he looked surprised and amused, and said, " What 
 is it ?'' I said, "I think it is ' Mill's British India.' " 
 He said it was quite true. He was beginning to read 
 Mill, for he thought that as he was going out to India 
 it was necessary that he should, if possible, rub up the 
 information which perhaps in the lapse of years had 
 passed from his mind. But when you come to discuss 
 with the officials in Calcutta the question of railways 
 there, they can open their minds to the large, and as 
 they consider it the necessary expenditure ; but the 
 question of railways, in their opinion, is a totally 
 different one from the question of canals, either for 
 navigation or irrigation. 
 
 I think the question of railways is far more a question 
 for the English, as a power in India, than for the native 
 people in India. It is a great military question. It 
 was supposed that with one regiment they could do the 
 work in maintaining order or suppressing insurrection 
 with railways, that would require three regiments when 
 there were no railways, though since they have made 
 railways the authorities have half as many more men in 
 India as they had when there were no railways at all. 
 So that with regard to railways, whether they pay or 
 not (and I am taking the statement of Sir Arthur 
 Cotton with regard to the State railways that are being 
 made, I have not examined the figures minutely myself), 
 whether they pay or not, such is the fear of the authori- 
 ties in Calcutta as to the peril connected with their 
 power in India, that railways must be made for the sake 
 of the permanence of that power, although they may 
 not be worth one-twentieth part of what canals for 
 navigation or irrigation would be worth in relation to 
 the true interests, comfort, and prosperity of the
 
 India 47 
 
 millions of Natives of the country. Why is it, if they 
 have spent 100,000,000/., or 120,000,000/., and it is 
 much more if you add the debt — if they have spent all 
 that upon railways — and yet the vast bulk of India is 
 not touched by railways at this moment — why should 
 they hesitate as to a policy which, by spending one 
 quarter of it, or 25,000,000/., within the next few 
 years, might redeem India from the disgrace which 
 attends it from this neglect, and might redeem that 
 vast population from the suffering which periodically 
 assails it ? 
 
 There are engineers in India — and where great works 
 are to be done great engineers are found— though we 
 cannot hope that Sir Arthur Cotton himself will ever 
 again give his time and labour to works of this kind in 
 India, yet I have no doubt there are other men, and not 
 a few of them, who would have the ambition to tread 
 in his steps, and who after their forty or fifty years in 
 India might point to works as grand as his, which en- 
 title him not only to the gratitude of the people of 
 India, but to the high esteem and the grateful con- 
 sideration of the people of England too. Thirty 
 millions spent in this way, at the rate of interest at 
 which the English Government could borrow it, would 
 be only about 1,000,000/. per annum; and at the rate 
 at which the Indian Government could borrow, it 
 would not certainly be more than 2,000,000/. per 
 annum. 
 
 Well, if these canals could be made, if this cheap 
 navigation could be provided — and recollect that the 
 people of India do not want to travel by express trains, 
 their time is not worth the expense of such travelling 
 —they would be very glad to go even at half the speed 
 of an ordinary train in India. Their produce, which 
 is mostly what you call raw produce from the soil, 
 dees not require to travel at twenty miles an hour. 
 They cannot afford to pay the cost of travelling^ at 
 such a rate. If canals for navigation or irrigation 
 were made upon some grand scheme determined by 
 eminent and competent engineers, you would find the 
 produce of nearly all the districts of India, all those
 
 48 Bright's Speeches 
 
 not hitherto irrigated, would probably be doubled. 
 Produce would be carried cheaply to the coast, and 
 it would be distributed in the interior of the country, 
 where there was partial scarcity, from where there 
 was great abundance, and the surplus would come to 
 this country and help to feed the growing population 
 we have amongst us. The fact is that England and 
 India would be both blessed by a policy of this kind. 
 The population of India would be redeemed from 
 poverty, and the population of England would have 
 steadier and more constant employment, and a steady 
 and, I hope, satisfactory rate of wages. But it is 
 easy to say what shall be done. Some gentlemen — 
 for whom our friends below are now busy with their 
 fingers and their pens — some gentlemen who direct 
 leading articles in the newspapers will say, " How 
 easy it is to say this and that shall be done ;" and they 
 will begin to point out difficulties, and show that these 
 things are doubtful in themselves, and if they are not, 
 the obstacles are such as at the present time, in the 
 present condition of the finances of India, the Govern- 
 ment cannot overcome. 
 
 I said just now, referring to the Government in Cal- 
 cutta, that these gentlemen have a terror of expenditure 
 before their eyes. I do not think half a dozen gentle- 
 men in Calcutta — and who, by the way, spend I believe 
 half the year at Simla — are capable of administering 
 the government for 200,000,000 or 250,000,000 of 
 people. I think it is an impossibility, which man in 
 our present state of knowledge and morals will never 
 be able to overcome, to govern one-sixth of all the 
 population of the globe by half a dozen officers from 
 this country— governing a people who have been con- 
 quered, and therefore must be less easy to govern ; a 
 people who are foreign, and therefore whose wants 
 must be less understood. There never was anything in 
 the world so monstrous as to believe that half a dozen 
 officials in Calcutta can govern one-sixth of the popula- 
 tion of the globe, comprising twenty or more different 
 nations and speaking twenty different languages ; and 
 yet this is what we expect to have done, and what
 
 India 49 
 
 many people have believed has been well done by a 
 Governor-General and half a dozen eminent civilians in 
 the city of Calcutta. I believe there is only one person 
 in India, so far as I have ever heard, who is in favour 
 of economy, and he is the Governor-General. All the 
 people with white faces — English, Scotch, Irish, and so 
 forth — are nearly all in the service of the Government. 
 I am not speaking now of the handful of merchants, 
 but all the civilians, engineers, military men, everybody 
 — they are all in favour of, and have an interest in, 
 patronage, promotion, salaries, and ultimately pensions. 
 And then there is no public opinion which fights in 
 favour of economy. There are two sets of newspapers 
 — those, first, which are published by Englishmen, and 
 these, being the papers of the Services, cannot, of 
 course, be in favour of economy. They assail me every 
 time I mention India in a speech, if it is even only in a 
 single paragraph, and no doubt they will do the same 
 for what I am saying now. Then there are the Native 
 papers ; and although there are a great many published 
 in the Native languages, still they have not much of 
 what we call political influence. The Government 
 officials look into them to see if they are saying any- 
 thing unpleasant to the Government — anything that 
 indicates sedition or discontent, but never for the pur- 
 pose of being influenced by the judgment of the writers 
 and editors. The actual press of the country which 
 touches the Government is the press of the English ; 
 and that press, as a rule, is in favour— and, of course, 
 generally has been in favour — of annexation of more ter- 
 ritory, more places, more salaries, and ultimately more 
 pensions. Now I may say of these salaries and pensions 
 that I believe there is no other service in the world, 
 and never has been, in which salaries have been so high 
 and pensions so large as those that have been given 
 by the Indian Government, whether under the East 
 India Company or under the present Government of 
 the Crown. I may say further that their military 
 expenditure, that consisted only of the maintenance of 
 an army of 40,000 men before the mutiny, consists now 
 of an army of 60,000 Europeans, although the mutiny 
 
 D
 
 50 Bright's Speeches 
 
 was subdued, I believe, before a single fresh soldier had 
 landed in that country from this. 
 
 It may be said that I am no authority on this subject. 
 I admit it. I admit that the persons who are out there 
 — the Governor-General and his principal ministers, 
 and officers of the army — possibly they may all have 
 opinions that are more worth your considering than 
 mine ; but I state these facts, and I say that the 
 Government put over 250,000,000 of people, which has 
 levied taxes till it can levy no more, which spends all 
 that it can levy, and which has borrowed 100,000,000/. 
 more than all that it can levy — I say a Government 
 like that has some fatal defect which at some not dis- 
 tant time must bring disaster and humiliation to the 
 Government and to the people on whose behalf it 
 rules. 
 
 I have nearly finished what I have to say, but I want 
 to make one reference to what took place nineteen or 
 twenty years ago when the Government of India was 
 changed. At the time when the second reading of the 
 Bill was before the House— a Bill I supported in every 
 stage — I ventured to address a speech to the House of 
 Commons on the general and broad question of our 
 Government in India. I said then that I did not 
 believe, as I have said now, that a Government in Cal- 
 cutta could ever efficiently direct the affairs of that 
 country or legislate for it ; that it could not do its duty 
 to nations speaking twenty languages, comprising, as it 
 is said, now more than 200,000,000 of people — one-sixth 
 the population of the globe. I argued that it was 
 necessary, and would some time become imperative, 
 that the Government of India should be so changed 
 that it should be divided into five or six separate and 
 entirely independent Presidencies ; that by that means 
 the government of every district should be brought 
 nearer to the people ; that you would not have the 
 Government of Madras contending constantly with the 
 Government of Calcutta, and the Government of Bom- 
 bay being unable to do many things it would like to 
 have done because the Government at Calcutta would 
 not consent ; that if you would divide the country into
 
 India 51 
 
 different Presidencies, and make each a separate and 
 independent State in itself, with the management of its 
 own government, with its own Council, you would 
 bring the government home to the people. And while 
 the Government would necessarily or probably be much 
 better, you would teach the people of these Presidencies 
 to consider themselves, as generations passed on, as 
 the subjects and the people of that State. 
 
 And thus if the time should come — and it will come 
 — I agree with Lord Lawrence that no man who 
 examines the question can doubt that some time it 
 must come — when the power of England, from some 
 cause or other, is withdrawn from India, then each one 
 of these States would be able to sustain itself as a 
 compact, as a self-governing community. You would 
 have five or six great States there, as you have five or 
 six great States in Europe ; but that would be a 
 thousand times better than our being withdrawn from 
 it now when there is no coherence amongst those 
 twenty nations, and when we should find the whole 
 country, in all probability, lapse into chaos and anarchy, 
 and into sanguinary and interminable warfare. I be- 
 lieve that it is our duty not only to govern India well 
 now for our own sakes and to satisfy our own con- 
 science, but so to arrange its government and so to 
 administer it that we should look forward to the time 
 — which may be distant, but may not be so remote — 
 when India will have to take up her own government, 
 and administer it in her own fashion. I say he is no 
 statesman — he is no man actuated with a high moral 
 sense with regard to our great and terrible moral re- 
 sponsibility, who is not willing thus to look ahead, and 
 thus to prepare for circumstances which may come 
 sooner than we think, and sooner than any of us hope 
 for, but which must come at some not very distant date. 
 By doing this, I think we should be endeavouring to 
 make amends for the original crime upon which much 
 of our power in India is founded, and for the many 
 mistakes which have been made by men whose in- 
 tentions have been good. I think it is our duty, if we 
 can, to approach this great question in this spirit, and 
 
 d 2
 
 52 Bright's Speeches 
 
 to try rightly to discharge the task committed to us, as 
 the Government and rulers of the countless and help- 
 less millions of that country. If we seek thus to deal 
 with those millions, and men in after ages condemn our 
 fathers for the policy which for the time bound India 
 to England, they may award praise to us and to those 
 who come after us for that we have striven to give 
 them that good government and that freedom which 
 He, who is supreme over all lands and all peoples, will 
 in His own good time make the possession of all His 
 children. 
 
 IV 
 
 INDIA— IV. : PERVERSION OF AFFGHAN 
 DESPATCHES 
 
 (from hansard) 
 
 House of Commons, March 19, 1861. 
 
 [Mr. Dunlop brought forward a motion to inquire into the dis- 
 crepancies between certain sets of documents, relating to the 
 Affghan war of 1837-8. It appeared that some passages 
 in the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes had been mutilated, 
 in order to make it appear that he advised a policy which he 
 really condemned. Mr. Dunlop moved for a Committee to 
 inquire into this alleged mutilation of despatches presented to 
 the House. The motion was negatived.] 
 
 When the noble Lord rose, I observed, from his 
 countenance and from his language, that he seemed to 
 be suffering from the passion of anger. [Viscount 
 Palmerston : " Not much."] " Not much," the noble 
 Lord says. I admit that in the course of his speech he 
 calmed down ; but he was so far led from what I think 
 was a fair course as to charge the hon. and learned 
 Gentleman who introduced this Motion with making a 
 violent and vituperative speech, and he spoke of "that 
 vocabulary of abuse of which the hon. Gentleman 
 appeared to be master." Now, I will undertake to say 
 that I am only speaking the opinion of every Gentle- 
 man in the House who heard the speech which intro- 
 duced this question, when I say that there has rarely
 
 India 53 
 
 been delivered here on any subject a speech more 
 strictly logical, more judicially calm, and more admirable 
 than that which we have heard to-night from the hon. 
 and learned Member for Greenock. But the fact is the 
 noble Lord felt himself hit. 
 
 The noble Lord is on his trial in this case, and on 
 that account I expect that at the conclusion of the 
 debate he will not feel himself at liberty to object to the 
 appointment of this Committee. After a few sentences 
 the noble Lord touched upon the case of Sir Alexander 
 Burnes, and he made a very faint denial of the mis- 
 representations which are charged against the Govern- 
 ment of that day in the case of that gentleman. But he 
 went on to say that, after all, these things were of no 
 importance ; that what was in, or what was left out, 
 was unimportant. But I should like to ask the noble 
 Lord what was the object of the minute and ingenious, 
 and I will say unmatched care, which was taken in 
 mutilating the despatches of a gentleman whose opinions 
 were of no importance and whose writings could not 
 make the slightest difference either to the question or to 
 the opinions of any person concerned ? The noble Lord, 
 too, has stooped to conduct which, if I were not in this 
 House, I might describe in language which I could not 
 possibly use here without being told that I was trans- 
 gressing the line usually observed in discussions in this 
 assembly. The noble Lord has stooped so low as to 
 heap insult, throughout the whole of his speech, upon 
 the memory of a man who died in the execution of what 
 he believed to be his public duty — a duty which was 
 thrust upon him by the mad and obstinate policy of the 
 noble Lord ; and whilst his blood cries to Heaven 
 against that policy, the noble Lord, during a three- 
 quarters of an hour's speech in this House, has scarcely 
 ceased to heap insult on his memory. 
 
 What the noble Lord told us throughout his speech 
 was that Sir Alexander Burnes was a man of the 
 greatest simplicity of character. I could not, however 
 complimentary I were disposed to be, retort that upon 
 the noble Lord. He says that Sir Alexander Burnes — 
 of whom he spoke throughout in the most contemptuous
 
 54 Bright's Speeches 
 
 manner — an eminent political agent at the Court of 
 Dost Mahommed, was beguiled by the treachery of 
 that Asiatic ruler ; that he took everything for truth 
 which he heard, and that, in point of fact, he was 
 utterly unfit for the position which he held at Cabul. 
 But although the noble Lord had these despatches 
 before him, and knew all the feelings of Sir Alexander 
 Burnes, he still continued Sir Alexander Burnes there. 
 He was there two years after these despatches were 
 written, in that most perilous year when not only him- 
 self but the whole army — subjects of the Queen — fell 
 victims to the policy of the noble Lord. Now, I must 
 tell the noble Lord what my hon. and learned Friend, 
 the Member for Greenock, did not discuss, and what 
 the Committee is not to do — because every Member 
 who heard the speech of the hon. and learned Member 
 for Greenock, and those who listened to the speech of 
 the noble Lord, must have seen that from the first the 
 noble Lord evaded the whole question. He endeavoured 
 to lead the House to believe that my hon. and learned 
 Friend was going into some antiquarian researches 
 about the policy of the English or the Indian Govern- 
 ment twenty years ago, and that it was proposed to 
 have a Committee to dig up all the particulars of our 
 supposed peril from the designs of Russia at that time. 
 But the fact is that my hon. and learned Friend had no 
 such intention ; and there was no man in the House 
 more cognizant of that fact than the noble Lord when 
 he ingeniously endeavoured to convey a contrary im- 
 pression to the House. 
 
 It is not proposed to go into the policy of the war. 
 And there is another question that it is not proposed to 
 go into. It is not proposed to inquire whether Sir 
 Alexander Burnes or Lord Auckland was Governor- 
 General. We know that Lord Auckland was Governor- 
 General ; but we know that a Governor-General who 
 may be many hundreds, or in India, perhaps, 2,000 
 miles away from the place where particular events are 
 transpiring, must rely to a considerable extent on the 
 information he receives from the political agent who is 
 on the spot. If this be so, clearly what Sir Alexander
 
 India 55 
 
 Burnes thought, and what he said, and what he wrote, 
 is of some importance. At least, if the House of 
 Commons has any evidence placed before it, the noble 
 Lord will agree that in a great question like this — I am 
 not speaking of the present time, but of the time when 
 these events happened — it is of first-rate importance 
 that the House should have evidence not on one side 
 only, but on both sides. There is another thing we do 
 not propose to inquire into, and that is the policy of 
 Russia at that time. I cannot very well understand 
 the course which the noble Lord has taken on this 
 point ; for I find that about twelve months after the 
 writing of these very despatches, the mutilation of which 
 is now complained of, the noble Lord made a reply to 
 the Russian Minister who had declared that there was 
 nothing whatever hostile to England in the instructions 
 which were furnished to Vicovich. He says : 
 
 " There has not existed the smallest design hostile to 
 the English Government, nor the smallest idea of 
 endangering the tranquillity of the British possessions 
 in India." 
 
 The noble Lord, in reply to that, on the 20th December, 
 1838, just a year after the writing of these despatches by 
 Sir Alexander Burnes, said : 
 
 " Her Majesty's Government accept as entirely satis- 
 factory the declaration of the Russian Government that 
 it does not harbour any designs hostile to the interests 
 of Great Britain in India." 
 
 I may leave that question there, because I can assure 
 the noble Lord that my hon. and learned Friend has not 
 the smallest intention — I judge so, at least, from his 
 speech — of bringing anybody before the Committee to 
 attack or defend the policy of the Government in the 
 war which then unhappily took place. Nor do I sup- 
 pose it is intended to arraign anybody for a policy that 
 sacrificed at least 20,000 human lives — 20,000 lives of 
 the subjects of the Queen of England. Nor is it in- 
 tended to inquire how far the loss of more than 
 15,000,000/. sterling by that policy has affected for all 
 future time the finances and the circumstances of the 
 Government of India. These are crimes — the whole
 
 56 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of that policy is a crime — of a nature never to be 
 answered for. No man can accurately measure it. No 
 Committee of this House could adequately punish 
 those who were the perpetrators of it. No, Sir, my 
 hon. and learned Friend has not the slightest idea of 
 going back twenty years for the purpose of bringing the 
 noble Lord, or any one else who may be guilty of that 
 great crime, to the bar of public opinion by this Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 But it is worth while that the House should know 
 whether the Government in whom it placed confidence 
 at that time, and in whom the Queen placed confidence 
 — whether that Government was worthy of their con- 
 fidence, and whether any members of the Government 
 of that day are members of the Government at this 
 day. It is worth while knowing whether there was 
 and is a man in high position in the Government here 
 or in India who had so low a sense of honour and of 
 right that he could offer to this House mutilated, false, 
 forged despatches and opinions of a public servant who 
 lost his life in the public service. Conceive any man at 
 this moment in India engaged, as many have been 
 during the last three years, in perilous services — con- 
 ceive that any man should know that to-morrow, or 
 next week, or any time this year, he may lay his bones 
 in that distant land, and that six months afterwards 
 there may be laid on the table of this House by the 
 noble Lord at the head of the Government, or by the 
 Secretary of State for India, letters or despatches of his 
 from which passages have been cut out, and into which 
 passages have been inserted, in which words have been 
 so twisted as wholly to divert and distort his meaning, 
 and to give to him a meaning, it may be, utterly the 
 contrary to that which his original despatch intended 
 to convey. I cannot conceive any anticipation more 
 painful or more bitter, more likely to eat into the heart 
 of any man engaged in the service of his country in a 
 distant land. 
 
 It is admitted, and the noble Lord has not flatly 
 denied it — he cannot deny it — he knows it as well as 
 the hon. and learned Member for Greenock — he knows
 
 India 57 
 
 it as well as the very man whose hand did the 
 evil — he knows there have been garbling, mutilation, 
 practically and essentially falsehood and forgery, in 
 these despatches which have been laid before the 
 House. Why was it refused to give the original 
 despatches when they were asked for in 1842 by the 
 hon. Member for Inverness-shire (Mr. H. Baillie), and 
 when they were asked for at a later period by the hon. 
 Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) ? Why was it 
 that the originals were so consistently withheld ? That 
 they have been given now, I suppose, is because those 
 who were guilty of the outrage on the faith of Parlia- 
 ment thought, as twenty years had elapsed, that nobody 
 would give himself the trouble to go into the question, 
 and that no man would be so earnest as my hon. Friend 
 the Member for Greenock in bringing the question before 
 the notice of Parliament. 
 
 My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Had- 
 field) informs me that it was the noble Lord the Member 
 for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) who consented to the 
 production of the original despatches when he was in 
 office. I was not aware of that fact ; but I am free 
 here to tender him my thanks for the course which he 
 took. I am sure he is the last man whom anyone would 
 suspect of being mixed up in any transaction of this 
 kind, except with a view to give the House and the country 
 full information with regard to it. I say, then, avoiding 
 all the long speech of the noble Lord, that the object of 
 the Committee is to find out who did this evil thing — who 
 placed upon the table of the House information which 
 was knowingly false, and despatches that were actu- 
 ally forged — because if you add to or detract from, or so 
 change a coin, or note, or deed, as to make any of them 
 bear a meaning contrary to its original and intended 
 meaning, of course you are guilty of such an act as I 
 have described, and that is precisely what somebody 
 has done in the despatches which we are now discuss- 
 ing. I say an odious offence has been committed 
 against the House and against the truth ; and what we 
 want to know is, who did it ? 
 
 Now, will the noble Lord be candid enough — he does
 
 58 Bright's Speeches 
 
 not think there is anything wrong — he says there is not 
 much — it is very trifling — that Sir Alexander Burnes's 
 opinions are not worth much — supposing it to be so — 
 for the sake of argument, let me grant it ; but if it is a 
 matter of no importance, will the noble Lord be so 
 candid as to tell us who did it ? When Lord Broughton 
 was examined before the Official Salaries Committee 
 some years ago, he, as the noble Lord is aware, said 
 that he took upon himself, as President of the Board 
 of Control at the time, the entire responsibility of the 
 Affghan war. The noble Lord now at the' head of the 
 Government was then a member of the India Board, 
 and so, I believe, was the noble Lord the Member for 
 the City of London. But the noble Lord at the head 
 of the Government was also Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs. Now, I do not think I am wrong in supposing 
 that this question lies between the noble Lord the 
 Prime Minister and Lord Broughton, once a Member 
 of this House. This thing was not done by some 
 subordinate who cannot be found out. 
 
 My hon. and learned Friend says it has been done 
 with marvellous care, and even with so much ability 
 that it must have been done by a man of genius. Of 
 course there are men of genius in very objectionable 
 walks of life ; but we know that the noble Lord at the 
 head of the Government is a man of genius ; if he had 
 not been he would not have sat on that bench for the 
 last fifty years. And we know that Lord Broughton is 
 a man of many and varied accomplishments. And once 
 more I ask the noble Lord to tell us who did it. Heknows 
 who did it. Was it his own right hand, or was it Lord 
 Broughton's right hand, or was it some clever secretary 
 in the Foreign Office or in the India Office who did this 
 work ? I say the House has a right to know. We want 
 to know that. We want to drag the delinquent before 
 the public. This we want to know, because we wish to 
 deter other Ministers from committing the like offence ; 
 and we want to know it for that which most of all is 
 necessary — to vindicate the character and honour of 
 Parliament. Nothing can sink Parliament to a lower 
 state of degradation and baseness than that it should
 
 India 59 
 
 permit Ministers of the Crown to lay upon the table, 
 upon questions involving the sacrifice of 20,000,000/. of 
 money and 20,000 lives, documents which are not true, 
 which slander our public servants, and which slander 
 them most basely when they are dead and are not here 
 to answer. I do not believe that the gentlemen of Eng- 
 land in this House — upon that side of the House or 
 upon this — will ever consent to sit down with a case 
 proved so clearly as this is without directing the omni- 
 potent power and eye of Parliament into the matter. I 
 say, seeing the charge, seeing that the noble Lord was at 
 the head of the Foreign Office at the time, that the policy 
 of the Affghan war was always considered to be his, 
 and that the responsibility of this act must rest between 
 him and Lord Broughton — I should not like to hold the 
 opinion, and I do not hold the opinion, that the noble 
 Lord will object to a Committee to inquire into a matter 
 in which he is himself so directly concerned. 
 
 V 
 AMERICA— I.: THE "TRENT" AFFAIR 
 
 Rochdale, December 4, 1861. 
 
 [During the excitement caused by the seizure of Messrs. Mason 
 and Slidell, the envoys of the Slaveholders' Confederation, on 
 board the Trent steamer, Mr. Bright's townsmen invited him 
 to a public banquet, that they might have the opportunity of 
 hearing his opinions on the American Civil War, and on the 
 duty of England in regard to it. This speech was delivered 
 on the occasion of that banquet.] 
 
 The United States' Constitution left the slave question 
 for every State to manage for itself. It was a question 
 too difficult to settle then, and apparently every man 
 had the hope and belief that in a few years slavery 
 itself would become extinct. Then there happened a 
 great event in the annals of manufactures and com- 
 merce. It was discovered that in those States that 
 article which we in this country now so much depend 
 on, could be produced of the best quality necessary for
 
 60 Bright's Speeches 
 
 manufacture, and at a moderate price. From that day 
 to this the growth of cotton has increased there, and its 
 consumption has increased here, and a value which no 
 man dreamed of has been given to the slave and to 
 slave industry. Thus it has grown up to that gigantic 
 institution which now threatens either its own over- 
 throw or the overthrow of that which is a million times 
 more valuable — the United States of America. 
 
 The crisis at which we have arrived — I say " we," for, 
 after all, we are nearly as much interested as if I was 
 making this speech in the city of Boston or the city of 
 New York — the crisis, I say, which has now arrived, 
 was inevitable. I say that the conscience of the North, 
 never satisfied with the institution of slavery, was con- 
 stantly urging some men forward to take a more 
 extreme view of the question ; and there grew up 
 naturally a section — it may not have been a very 
 numerous one — in favour of the abolition of slavery. 
 A great and powerful party resolved at least upon a 
 restraint and a control of slavery, so that it should not 
 extend beyond the States and the area which it now 
 occupies. But, if we look at the Government of the 
 United States almost ever since the formation of the 
 Union, we shall find the Southern power has been 
 mostly dominant there. If we take thirty-six years 
 after the formation of the present Constitution — I think 
 about 1787 — we shall find that for thirty-two of those 
 years every President was a Southern man ; and if we 
 take the period from 1828 until i860, we shall find that, 
 on every election for President, the South voted in the 
 majority. 
 
 We know what an election is in the United States for 
 President of the Republic. There is a most extensive 
 suffrage, and there is the ballot-box. The members of 
 the House of Representatives are elected by the same 
 suffrage, and generally they are elected at the same 
 time. It is thus therefore almost inevitable that the 
 House of Representatives is in accord in public policy 
 with the President for the time being. Every four 
 years there springs from the vote created by the whole 
 people a President over that great nation. I think the
 
 America 61 
 
 world offers no finer spectacle than this ; it offers no 
 higher dignity ; and there is no greater object of 
 ambition on the political stage on which men are per- 
 mitted to move. You may point, if you will, to heredi- 
 tary rulers, to crowns coming down through succes- 
 sive generations of the same family, to thrones based 
 on prescription or on conquest, to sceptres wielded over 
 veteran legions and subject realms, — but to my mind 
 there is nothing more worthy of reverence and obedi- 
 ence, and nothing more sacred, than the authority of 
 the freely chosen magistrate of a great and free people ; 
 and if there be on earth and amongst men any right 
 divine to govern, surely it rests with a ruler so chosen 
 and so appointed. 
 
 Last year the ceremony of this great election was 
 gone through, and the South, which had been so long 
 successful, found itself defeated. That defeat was fol- 
 lowed instantly by secession, and insurrection, and war. 
 In the multitude of articles which have been before us 
 in the newspapers within the last few months, I have 
 no doubt you have seen it stated, as I have seen 
 it, that this question was very much like that upon 
 which the Colonies originally revolted against the 
 Crown of England. It is amazing how little some 
 newspaper writers know, or how little they think you 
 know. When the War of Independence was begun in 
 America, ninety years ago, there were no representa- 
 tives there at all. The question then was, whether 
 a Ministry in Downing Street, and a corrupt and 
 borough-mongering Parliament, should continue to im- 
 pose taxes upon three millions of English subjects, who 
 had left their native shores and established themselves 
 in North America. But now the question is not the 
 want of representation, because, as is perfectly notorious, 
 the South is not only represented, but is represented in 
 excess. . . . Therefore you will see at once that there 
 is no comparison between the state of things when the 
 Colonies revolted, and the state of things now, when 
 this wicked insurrection has broken out. 
 
 There is another cause which is sometimes in Eng- 
 land assigned for this great misfortune, which is, the
 
 62 Bright's Speeches 
 
 protective theories in operation in the Union, and the 
 maintenance of a high tariff. It happens with regard 
 to that, unfortunately, that no American, certainly no 
 one I ever met with, attributed the disasters of the 
 Union to that cause. It is an argument made use of by 
 ignorant Englishmen, but never by informed Americans. 
 I have already shown you that the South, during almost 
 the whole existence of the Union, has been dominant 
 at Washington ; and during that period the tariff has 
 existed, and there has been no general dissatisfaction 
 with it. Occasionally, there can be no doubt, their 
 tariff was higher than was thought just, or reasonable, 
 or necessary by some of the States of the South. But 
 the first Act of the United States which levied duties 
 upon imports, passed immediately after the Union was 
 formed, recited that " It is necessary for the encourage- 
 ment and protection of manufactures to levy the duties 
 which follow "; and during the war with England from 
 1812 to 1815, the people of the United States had to 
 pay for all the articles they brought from Europe man)' 
 times over the natural cost of those articles, on account 
 of the interruption to the traffic by the English nation. 
 
 When the war was over, it was felt by everybody de- 
 sirable that they should encourage manufactures in 
 their own country ; and seeing that England at that 
 precise moment was passing a law to prevent any 
 wheat coming from America until wheat in England 
 had risen to the price of 845. per quarter, we may be 
 quite satisfied that the doctrine of protection originally 
 entertained did not find less favour at the close of the 
 war in 1815. 
 
 There is one remarkable point with regard to this 
 matter which should not be forgotten. Twelve months 
 ago, at the meeting of the Congress of the United 
 States, on the first Monday in December — when the 
 Congress met, you recollect that there were various 
 propositions of compromise, committee meetings of 
 various kinds to try and devise some mode of settling the 
 question between the North and the South, so that dis- 
 union might not go on — though I read carefully every- 
 thing published in the English papers from the United
 
 America 63 
 
 States on the subject, I do not recollect that in a single 
 instance the question of the tariff was referred to, or 
 any change proposed or suggested in the matter as 
 likely to have any effect whatever upon the question of 
 Secession. 
 
 The question is a very different and a far more grave 
 question. It is a question of slavery, and for thirty 
 years it has constantly been coming to the surface, dis- 
 turbing social life, and overthrowing almost all political 
 harmony in the working of the United States. In the 
 North there is no secession ; there is no collision. 
 These disturbances and this insurrection are found 
 wholly in the South and in the Slave States; and there- 
 fore I think that the man who says otherwise, who con- 
 tends that it is the tariff, or anything whatsoever else 
 than slavery, is either himself deceived or endeavours 
 to deceive others. The object of the South is this, to 
 escape from the majority who wish to limit the area of 
 slavery. They wish to found a Slave State freed from 
 the influence and opinions of freedom. The Free 
 States in the North now stand before the world as the 
 advocates and defenders of freedom and civilization. 
 The Slave States offer themselves for the recognition 
 of a Christian nation, based upon the foundation, the 
 unchangeable foundation in their eyes, of slavery and 
 barbarism. 
 
 I will not discuss the guilt of the men who, Ministers 
 of a great nation only last year, conspired to overthrow 
 it. I will not point out or recapitulate the statements 
 of the fraudulent manner in which they dispose of the 
 funds in the national exchequer. I will not point out 
 by name any of the men, in this conspiracy, whom 
 history will designate by titles they would not like to 
 hear ; but I say that slavery has sought to break up the 
 most free government in the world, and to found a new 
 Staie, in the nineteenth century, whose corner-stone is 
 the perpetual bondage of millions of men. 
 
 Having thus described what appears to me briefly 
 the literal truth of this matter, what is the course that 
 England would be expected to pursue ? We should be
 
 64 Bright's Speeches 
 
 neutral as far as regards mingling in the strife. We 
 were neutral in the strife in Italy ; but we were not 
 neutral in opinion or sympathy ; and we know perfectly 
 well that throughout the whole of Italy at this moment 
 there is a feeling that, though no shot was fired from an 
 English ship, and though no English soldiertrodtheirsoil, 
 yet still the opinion of England was potent in Europe, 
 and did much for the creation of the Italian kingdom. 
 
 With regard to the United States, you know how 
 much we hate slavery, — that is, some years ago we 
 thought we knew ; that we have given twenty millions 
 sterling, — a million a year, or nearly so, of taxes for ever, 
 — to free eight hundred thousand slaves in the English 
 colonies. We knew, or thought we knew, how much we 
 were in love with free government everywhere, although 
 it might not take precisely the same form as our own 
 government. We were for free government in Italy ; 
 we were for free government in Switzerland ; and we 
 were for free government, even under a republican 
 form, in the United States of America ; and with all 
 this, every man would have said that England would 
 wish the American Union to be prosperous and eternal. 
 
 Now, suppose we turn our eyes to the East, to the 
 empire of Russia, for a moment. In Russia, as you all 
 know, there has been one of the most important and 
 magnificent changes of policy ever seen in any country. 
 Within the last year or two, the present Emperor of 
 Russia, following the wishes of his father, has insisted 
 upon the abolition of serfdom in that empire ; and 
 twenty-three millions of human beings, lately serfs, little 
 better than real slaves, have been raised to the ranks of 
 freedom. Now, suppose that the millions of the serfs 
 of Russia had been chiefly in the South of Russia. We 
 hear of the nobles of Russia, to whom those serfs 
 belonged in a great measure, that they have been 
 hostile to this change ; and there has been some danger 
 that the peace of that empire might be disturbed during 
 the change. Suppose these nobles, for the purpose of 
 maintaining in perpetuity the serfdom of Russia, and 
 barring out twenty-three millions of your fellow-creatures 
 from the rights of freedom, had established a great and
 
 America 65 
 
 secret conspiracy, and that they had risen in great and 
 dangerous insurrection against the Russian Govern- 
 ment, — I say that you, the people of England, although 
 seven years ago you were in mortal combat with the 
 Russians in the South of Europe,— I believe at this 
 moment you would have prayed Heaven in all sincerity 
 and fervour to give strength to the arm and success to 
 the great wishes of the Emperor, and that the vile and 
 atrocious insurrection might be suppressed. 
 
 Well, but let us look a little at what has been said 
 and done in this country since the period when Parlia- 
 ment rose at the beginning of August. There have 
 been two speeches to which I wish to refer, and in 
 terms of approbation. The Duke of Argyll, a member 
 of the present Government, — and, though I have not the 
 smallest personal acquaintance with him, I am free to 
 say that I believe him to be one of the most intelligent 
 and liberal of his order,— the Duke of Argyll made a 
 speech which was fair and friendly to the Government 
 of the United States. Lord Stanley, only a fortnight 
 ago, I think, made a speech which it is impossible to 
 read without remarking the thought, the liberality, and 
 the wisdom by which it is distinguished. He doubted, 
 it is true, whether the Union could be restored. A man 
 need not be hostile, and must not necessarily be un- 
 friendly, to doubt that or the contrary ; but he spoke 
 with fairness and friendliness of the Government of the 
 United States ; and he said that they were right and 
 justifiable in the course they took ; and he gave us 
 some advice, — which is now more important than at 
 the moment when it was given, — that amid the various 
 incidents and accidents of a struggle of this nature, it 
 became a people like this to be very moderate, very 
 calm, and to avoid, as much as possible, any feeling of 
 irritation, which sometimes arises, and sometimes leads 
 to danger. 
 
 I mention these two speeches as from Englishmen 
 of great distinction in this country — speeches which I 
 believe will have a beneficial effect on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. Lord John Russell, in the House of 
 Commons, during the last session, made a speech also, 
 
 E
 
 66 Bright's Speeches 
 
 in which he rebuked the impertinence of a young 
 Member of the House who had spoken about the 
 bursting of the " bubble republic." It was a speech 
 worthy of the best days of Lord John Russell. But at 
 a later period he spoke at Newcastle on an occasion 
 something like this, when the inhabitants, or some 
 portion of the inhabitants, of the town invited him to 
 a public dinner. He described the contest in words 
 something like these — I speak from memory only : "The 
 North is contending for empire, the South for inde- 
 pendence." Did he mean contending for empire, as 
 England contends for it when making some fresh con- 
 quest in India? If he meant that, what he said was 
 not true. But I recollect Lord John Russell, some 
 years ago, in the House of Commons, on an occasion 
 when I made some observation as to the unreasonable 
 expenditure of our colonies, and said that the people of 
 England should not be taxed to defray expenses which 
 the colonies themselves were well able to bear, turned 
 to me with a sharpness which was not necessary, and 
 said, " The honourable Member has no objection to 
 make a great empire into a little one ; but I have." 
 Perhaps, if he had lived in the United States, if he 
 was a member of the Senate or the House of Repre- 
 sentatives there, he would doubt whether it was his 
 duty to consent at once to the destruction of a great 
 country by separation, it may be into two hostile 
 camps, or whether he would not try all the means 
 which were open to him, and would be open to the 
 Government, to avert so unlooked-for and so dire a 
 calamity. 
 
 There are other speeches that have been made. I 
 will not refer to them by any quotation, — I will not, out 
 of pity to some of the men who uttered them. I will 
 not bring their names even before you, to give them an 
 endurance which I hope they will not otherwise obtain. 
 I leave them in the obscurity which they so richly 
 merit. But you know as well as I do, that, of all the 
 speeches made since the end of the last session of 
 Parliament by public men, by politicians, the majority 
 of them have either displayed a strange ignorance of
 
 America 67 
 
 American affairs, or a stranger absence of that 
 cordiality and friendship which, I maintain, our 
 American kinsmen have a right to look for at our 
 hands. 
 
 And if we part from the speakers and turn to the 
 writers, what do we find there ? We find that which 
 is reputed abroad, and has hitherto been believed in at 
 home, as the most powerful representative of English 
 opinion — at least of the richer classes — we find in that 
 particular newspaper there has not been since Mr. 
 Lincoln took office, in March last, as President of the 
 United States, one fair and honourable and friendly 
 article on American affairs. Some of you, I dare say, 
 read it ; but, fortunately, every district is now so 
 admirably supplied with local newspapers, that I trust 
 in all time to come the people of England will drink of 
 purer streams nearer home, and not of those streams 
 which are muddled by party feeling and political 
 intrigue, and by many motives that tend to anything 
 rather than the enlightenment and advantage of the 
 people. It is said, — that very paper has said over and 
 over again, — " Why this war ? Why not separate 
 peaceably ? Why this fratricidal strife ?" I hope it is 
 equally averse to fratricidal strife in other districts ; for 
 if it be true that God made of one blood all the families 
 of man to dwell on the face of all the earth, it must be 
 fratricidal strife whether we are slaughtering Russians 
 in the Crimea or bombarding towns on the sea-coast of 
 the United States. 
 
 Now no one will expect that I should stand forward 
 as the advocate of war, or as the defender of that great 
 sum of all crimes which is involved in war. But when 
 we are discussing a question of this nature, it is only 
 fair that we should discuss it upon principles which 
 are acknowledged not only in the country where the 
 strife is being carried on, but are universally acknow- 
 ledged in this country. When I discussed the Russian 
 war, seven or eight years ago, I always condemned it, 
 on principles which were accepted by the Government 
 and people of England, and I took my facts from the 
 blue-books presented to Parliament. I take the liberty, 
 
 e 2
 
 68 Bright's Speeches 
 
 then, of doing that in this case ; and I say that, looking 
 at the principles avowed in England, and at its policy, 
 there is no man, who is not absolutely a non-resistant 
 in every sense, who can fairly challenge the conduct of 
 the American Government in this war. It would be 
 a curious thing to find that the party in this country 
 which on every public question affecting England is in 
 favour of war at any cost, when they come to speak of 
 the duty of the Government of the United States, is in 
 favour " of peace at any price." 
 
 I want to know whether it has ever been admitted 
 by politicians, or statesmen, or people, that a great 
 nation can be broken up at any time by any particular 
 section of any part of that nation. It has been tried 
 occasionally in Ireland, and if it had succeeded history 
 would have said that it was with very good cause. 
 But if anybody tried now to get up a secession or insur- 
 rection in Ireland, — and it would be infinitely less dis- 
 turbing to everything than the secession in the United 
 States, because there is a boundary which nobody can 
 dispute, — I am quite sure the Times would have its 
 " Special Correspondent," and would describe with all 
 the glee and exultation in the world the manner in 
 which the Irish insurrectionists were cut down and 
 made an end of. 
 
 Let any man try in this country to restore the hep- 
 tarchy, do you think that any portion of the people 
 would think that the project could be tolerated for a 
 moment ? But if you look at a map of the United 
 States, you will see that there is no country in the 
 world, probably, at this moment, where any plan of 
 separation between the North and the South, as far as 
 the question of boundary is concerned, is so surrounded 
 with insurmountable difficulties. For example, Mary- 
 land is a Slave State ; but Maryland, by a large 
 majority, voted for the Union. Kentucky is a Slave 
 State, one of the finest in the Union, and containing a 
 fine people ; Kentucky has voted for the Union, but 
 has been invaded from the South. Missouri is a Slave 
 State ; but Missouri has not seceded, and has been 
 invaded by the South, and there is a secession party in
 
 America 69 
 
 that State. There are parts of Virginia which have 
 formed themselves into a new State, resolved to adhere 
 to the North ; and there is no doubt a considerable 
 Northern and Union feeling in the State of Tennessee. 
 I have no doubt there is in every other State. In fact, 
 I am not sure that there is not now within the sound 
 of my voice a citizen of the State of Alabama, who 
 could tell you that in his State the question of secession 
 has never been put to the vote ; and that there are 
 great numbers of men, reasonable and thoughtful and 
 just men, in that State, who entirely deplore the con- 
 dition of things there existing. 
 
 Then, what would you do with all those States, and 
 with what we may call the loyal portion of the people 
 of those States ? Would you allow them to be 
 dragooned into this insurrection, and into the formation 
 or the becoming parts of a new State, to which they 
 themselves are hostile ? And what would you do with 
 the City of Washington ? Washington is in a Slave 
 State. Would anybody have advised that President 
 Lincoln and his Cabinet, with all the members of 
 Congress, of the House of Representatives and the 
 Senate, from the North, with their wives and children, 
 and everybody else who was not positively in favour of 
 the South, should have set off on their melancholy 
 pilgrimage northwards, leaving that capital, hallowed 
 to them by such associations, — having its name even 
 from the father of their country, — leaving Washington 
 to the South, because Washington is situated in a 
 Slave State ? 
 
 Again, what do you say to the Mississippi River, as 
 you see it upon the map, the " father of waters," rolling 
 its gigantic stream to the ocean ? Do you think that 
 the fifty millions which one day will occupy the banks 
 of that river northward, will ever consent that its 
 great stream shall roll through a foreign, and it may 
 be a hostile State ? And more, there are four millions 
 of negroes in subjection. For them the American 
 Union is directly responsible. They are not seces- 
 sionists ; they are now, as they always were, not 
 citizens nor subjects, but legally under the care and
 
 70 Bright's Speeches 
 
 power of the Government of the United States. Would 
 you consent that these should be delivered up to the 
 tender mercies of their taskmasters, the defenders of 
 slavery as an everlasting institution ? 
 
 But if all had been surrendered without a struggle, 
 what then ? What would the writers in this news- 
 paper and other newspapers have said ? If a bare rock 
 in your empire, that would not keep a goat — a single 
 goat — alive, be touched by any foreign power, the 
 whole empire is roused to resistance ; and if there be, 
 from accident or passion, the smallest insult to your 
 flag, what do your newspaper writers say upon the 
 subject, and what is said in all your towns and upon 
 all your Exchanges ? I will tell you what they would 
 have said if the Government of the Northern States 
 had taken their insidious and dishonest advice. They 
 would have said the great Republic was a failure, 
 that democracy had murdered patriotism, that history- 
 afforded no example of such meanness and of such 
 cowardice ; and they would have heaped unmeasured 
 obloquy and contempt upon the people and Govern- 
 ment who had taken that course. 
 
 They tell you, these candid friends of the United 
 States, — they tell you that all freedom is gone ; that the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, if they ever had one, is known no 
 longer ; and that any man may be arrested at the 
 dictum of the President or of the Secretary of State. 
 Well, but in 1848 you recollect, many of you, that there 
 was a small insurrection in Ireland. It was an absurd 
 thing altogether ; but what was done then ? I saw, in 
 one night, in the House of Commons, a Bill for the 
 suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act passed through 
 all its stages. What more did I see ? I saw a Bill 
 brought in by the Whig Government of that day, Lord 
 John Russell being the Premier, which made speaking 
 against the Government and against the Crown — which 
 up to that time had been sedition — which proposed to 
 make it felony ; and it was only by the greatest exer- 
 tions of a few of the Members that the Act, in that 
 particular, was limited to a period of two years. In the 
 same session a Bill was brought in called an Alien Bill,
 
 America 7 1 
 
 which enabled the Home Secretary to take any foreigner 
 whatsoever, not being a naturalized Englishman, and in 
 twenty-four hours to send him out of the country. 
 Although a man might have committed no crime, this 
 might be done to him, apparently only on suspicion. 
 
 But suppose that an insurgent army had been so 
 near to London that you could see its outposts from 
 every suburb of your Capital, what then do you think 
 would have been the regard of the Government of 
 Great Britain for personal liberty, if it interfered with 
 the necessities, and, as they might think, the salvation 
 of the State? I recollect, in 1848, when the Habeas 
 Corpus Act was suspended in Ireland, that a number 
 of persons in Liverpool, men there of position and of 
 wealth, presented a petition to the House of Commons, 
 praying — what ? That the Habeas Corpus Act should 
 not be suspended ? No. They were not content with its 
 suspension in Ireland ; and they prayed the House of 
 Commons to extend that suspension to Liverpool. I 
 recollect that at that time — and I am sure my friend 
 Mr. Wilson will bear me out in what I say — -the Mayor 
 of Liverpool telegraphed to the Mayor of Manchester, 
 and that messages were sent on to London nearly every 
 hour. The Mayor of Manchester heard from the 
 Mayor of Liverpool that certain Irishmen in Liverpool, 
 conspirators, or fellow - conspirators with those in 
 Ireland, were going to burn the cotton warehouses in 
 Liverpool and the cotton mills of Lancashire. I read 
 that petition from Liverpool. I took it from the table 
 of the House of Commons, and read it, and I handed it 
 over to a statesman of great eminence, who has been 
 but just removed from us — I refer to Sir James Graham, 
 a man not second to any in the House of Commons for 
 his knowledge of affairs and for his great capacity — I 
 handed to him that petition. He read it ; and after he 
 had read it, he rose from his seat, and laid it upon the 
 table with a gesture of abhorrence and disgust. Now 
 that was a petition from the town of Liverpool, in which 
 some persons have been making themselves very ridicu- 
 lous of late by reason of their conduct on this American 
 question.
 
 72 Bright's Speeches 
 
 There is one more point. It has been said, " How 
 much better it would be " — not for the United States, 
 but — " for us, that these States should be divided." I 
 recollect meeting a gentleman in Bond Street one day 
 before the session was over. He was a rich man, and 
 one whose voice is much heard in the House of Com- 
 mons ; but his voice is not heard when he is on his 
 legs, but when he is cheering other speakers ; and he 
 said to me : "After all, this is a sad business about the 
 United States ; but still I think it very much better 
 that they should be split up. In twenty years," or in 
 fifty years, I forget which it was, " they will be so 
 powerful that they will bully all Europe." And a dis- 
 tinguished Member of the House of Commons — dis- 
 tinguished there by his eloquence, distinguished more 
 by his many writings — I mean Sir Edward Bulwer 
 Lytton — he did not exactly express a hope, but he 
 ventured on something like a prediction, that the time 
 would come when there would be, I do not know how 
 many, but about as many independent States on the 
 American Continent as you can count upon your 
 fingers. 
 
 There cannot be a meaner motive than this I am 
 speaking of, in forming a judgment on this question, — 
 that it is " better for us " — for whom ? the people of 
 England, or the Government of England ? — that the 
 United States should be severed, and that the North 
 American continent should be as the continent of 
 Europe is, in many States, and subject to all the con- 
 tentions and disasters which have accompanied the 
 history of the States of Europe. I should say that, if 
 a man had a great heart within him, he would rather 
 look forward to the day when, from that point of land 
 which is habitable nearest to the Pole, to the shores of 
 the Great Gulf, the whole of that vast continent might 
 become one great confederation of States, — without a 
 great army, and without a great navy, — not mixing 
 itself up with the entanglements of European politics, — 
 without a custom - house inside, through the whole 
 length and breadth of its territory, — and with freedom 
 everywhere, equality everywhere, law everywhere,
 
 
 America 73 
 
 peace everywhere, — such a confederation would afford 
 at least some hope that man is not forsaken of Heaven, 
 and that the future of our race may be better than the 
 past. 
 
 It is a common observation, that our friends in 
 America are very irritable. And I think it is very 
 likely, of a considerable number of them, to be quite 
 true. Our friends in America are involved in a great 
 struggle. There is nothing like it before in their or in 
 any history. No country in the world was ever more 
 entitled, in my opinion, to the sympathy and the for- 
 bearance of all friendly nations, than are the United 
 States at this moment. They have there some news- 
 papers that are no wiser than ours. They have there 
 some papers, which, up to the election of Mr. Lincoln, 
 were his bitterest and most unrelenting foes, who, when 
 the war broke out, and it was not safe to take the line 
 of Southern support, were obliged to turn round and 
 to appear to adopt the prevalent opinion of the country. 
 But they undertook to serve the South in another way, 
 and that was by exaggerating every difficulty and mis- 
 stating every fact, if so doing could serve their object 
 of creating distrust between the people of the Northern 
 States and the people of this United Kingdom. If the 
 Times in this country has done all that it could do to 
 poison the minds of the people of England, and to irritate 
 the minds of the people of America, the New York Herald, 
 I am sorry to say, has done, I think, all that it could, 
 or all that it dared to do, to provoke mischief between 
 the Government in Washington and the Government 
 in London. 
 
 # * # * # 
 
 Now, then, before I sit down, let me ask you what 
 is this people, about which so many men in England 
 at this moment are writing, and speaking, and thinking, 
 with harshness, I think with injustice, if not with great 
 bitterness ? Two centuries ago, multitudes of the 
 people of this country found a refuge on the North 
 American continent, escaping from the tyranny of the 
 Stuarts and from the bigotry of Laud. Many noble 
 spirits from our country made great experiments in
 
 74 Bright's Speeches 
 
 favour of human freedom on that continent. Bancroft, 
 the great historian of his own country, has said, in his 
 own graphic and emphatic language, " The history of 
 the colonization of America is the history of the crimes of 
 Europe." From that time down to our own period, 
 America has admitted the wanderers from every clime. 
 Since 1815, a time which many here remember, and 
 which is within my lifetime, more than three millions 
 of persons have emigrated from the United Kingdom 
 to the United States. During the fifteen years from 
 1845 or 1846 to 1859 or i860 — a period so recent that 
 we all remember the most trivial circumstances that 
 have happened in that time — during those fifteen years 
 more than two million three hundred and twenty 
 thousand persons left the shores of the United King- 
 dom as emigrants for the States of North America. 
 
 At this very moment, then, there are millions in the 
 United States who personally, or whose immediate 
 parents, have at one time been citizens of this country. 
 They found a home in the Far West ; they subdued the 
 wilderness ; they met with plenty there, which was not 
 afforded them in their native country ; and they have 
 become a great people. There may be persons in 
 England who are jealous of those States. There may 
 be men who dislike democracy, and who hate a republic ; 
 there may be even those whose sympathies warm 
 towards the slave oligarchy of the South. But of this 
 I am certain, that only misrepresentation the most 
 gross or calumny the most wicked can sever the tie 
 which unites the great mass of the people of this 
 country with their friends and brethren beyond the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 Now, whether the Union will be restored or not, or 
 the South achieve an unhonoured independence or not, 
 I know not, and I predict not. But this I think I 
 know — that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty 
 millions of freemen in the North will be thirty millions, 
 or even fifty millions — a population equal to or exceed- 
 ing that of this kingdom. When that time comes, I 
 pray that it may not be said amongst them, that, in the 
 darkest hour of their country's trials, England, the
 
 America 75 
 
 land of their fathers, looked on with icy coldness and 
 saw unmoved the perils and calamities of their children. 
 As for me, I have but this to say : I am but one in 
 this audience, and but one in the citizenship of this 
 country ; but if all other tongues are silent, mine shall 
 speak for that policy which gives hope to the bondsmen 
 of the South, and which tends to generous thoughts, 
 and generous words, and generous deeds, between the 
 two great nations who speak the English language, and 
 from their origin are alike entitled to the English name. 
 
 VI 
 
 AMERICA— II. : THE WAR AND THE 
 SUPPLY OF COTTON 
 
 Birmingham, December i8, 1S62. 
 
 Now I shall not go into a long argument upon this 
 question, for the reason that a year ago I said what I 
 thought it necessary to say upon it, and because I 
 believe the question is in the hand, not of my hon. 
 Friend, nor in that of Lord Palmerston, nor in that 
 even of President Lincoln, but it is in the hand of the 
 Supreme Ruler, who is bringing about one of those 
 great transactions in history which men often will not 
 regard when they are passing before them, but which 
 they look back upon with awe and astonishment some 
 •years after they are past. So I shall content myself 
 with asking one or two questions. I shall not discuss 
 the question whether the North is making war for the 
 Constitution, or making war for the abolition of 
 slavery. 
 
 If you come to a matter of sympathy with the South, 
 or recognition of the South, or mediation or interven- 
 tion for the benefit of the South, you should consider 
 what are the ends of the South. Surely the United 
 States' Government is a Government at amity with this 
 country. Its Minister is in London — a man honour- 
 able by family, as you know, in America, his father and 
 his grandfather having held the office of President of
 
 76 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the Republic. You have your own Minister just 
 returned to Washington. Is this hypocrisy ? Are you, 
 because you can cavil at certain things which the 
 North, the United States' Government, has done or has 
 not done, are you eagerly to throw the influence of your 
 opinion into a movement which is to dismember the 
 great Republic ? 
 
 Is there a man here that doubts for a moment that 
 the object of the war on the part of the South — they 
 began the war — that the object of the war on the part 
 of the South is to maintain in bondage four millions of 
 human beings ? That is only a small part of it. The 
 further object is to perpetuate for ever the bondage of 
 all the posterity of those four millions of slaves. [A 
 few cries of " No ! No !"] You will hear that I am not 
 in a condition to contest vigorously anything that may 
 be opposed, for I am suffering, as nearly everybody is, 
 from the state of the weather, and a hoarseness that 
 almost hinders me from speaking. I could quote their 
 own documents till midnight in proof of what I say ; 
 and if I found a man who denied it, upon the evidence 
 that had been offered, I would not offend_ him, or 
 trouble myself by trying further to convince him. 
 
 The object is, that a handful of white men on that 
 continent shall lord it over many millions of blacks, 
 made black by the very Hand that made us white. 
 The object is, that they should have the power to breed 
 negroes, to work negroes, to lash negroes, to chain 
 negroes, to buy and sell negroes, to deny them the 
 commonest ties of family, or to break their hearts by 
 rending them at their pleasure, to close their mental 
 eye to but a glimpse even of that knowledge which 
 separates us from the brute — for in their laws it is 
 criminal and penal to teach the negro to read — to seal 
 from their hearts the Book of our religion, and to make 
 chattels and things of men and women and children. 
 
 Now I want to ask whether this is to be the founda- 
 tion, as it is proposed, of a new slave empire, and 
 whether it is intended that on this audacious and 
 infernal basis England's new ally is to be built up. 
 *****
 
 America 77 
 
 Now I should have no kind of objection to recognize 
 a country because it was a country that held slaves — to 
 recognize the United States, or to be in amity with it. 
 The question of slavery there, and in Cuba and in 
 Brazil, is, as far as respects the present generation, an 
 accident, and it would be unreasonable that we should 
 object to trade with and have political relations with a 
 country, merely because it happened to have within its 
 borders the institution of slavery, hateful as that institu- 
 tion is. But in this case it is a new State intending to 
 set itself up on the sole basis of slavery. Slavery is 
 blasphemously declared to be its chief corner-stone. 
 
 I have heard that there are, in this country, Ministers 
 of State who are in favour of the South ; that there are 
 members of the aristocracy who are terrified at the 
 shadow of the Great Republic ; that there are rich men 
 on our commercial exchanges, depraved, it may be, by 
 their riches, and thriving unwholesomely within the 
 atmosphere of a privileged class ; that there are con- 
 ductors of the public press who would barter the rights 
 of millions of their fellow-creatures that they might bask 
 in the smiles of the great. 
 
 But I know that there are Ministers of State who do 
 not wish that this insurrection should break up the 
 American nation ; that there are members of our 
 aristocracy who are not afraid of the shadow of the 
 Republic ; that there are rich men, many, who are not 
 depraved by their riches ; and that there are public 
 writers of eminence and honour who will not barter 
 human rights for the patronage of the great. But most 
 of all, and before all, I believe, — I am sure it is true in 
 Lancashire, where the working men have seen them- 
 selves coming down from prosperity to ruin, from 
 independence to a subsistence on charity, — I say that I 
 believe that the unenfranchised but not hopeless 
 millions of this country will never sympathize with a 
 revolt which is intended to destroy the liberty of a 
 continent, and to build on its ruins a mighty fabric of 
 human bondage. 
 
 When I speak to gentlemen in private upon this 
 matter, and hear their own candid opinion, — I mean
 
 78 Bright's Speeches 
 
 those who differ from me on this question, — they 
 generally end by saying that the Republic is too great 
 and too powerful, and that it is better for us — not by 
 "us" meaning you, but the governing classes and the 
 governing policy of England — that it should be broken 
 up. But we will suppose that we are in New York or 
 in Boston, discussing the policy and power of England. 
 If any one there were to point to England, — not to the 
 thirty-one millions of population in these islands, but to 
 her one hundred and fifty millions in India, and nobody 
 knows how many millions more in every other part of 
 the globe, — might he not, whilst boasting that America 
 has not covered the ocean with fleets of force, or left the 
 bones of her citizens to blanch on a hundred European 
 battle-fields, — might he not fairly say, that England is 
 great and powerful, and that it is perilous for the world 
 that she is so great ? 
 
 But bear in mind that every declaration of this kind, 
 whether from an Englishman who professes to be 
 strictly English, or from an American strictly American, 
 or from a Frenchman strictly French, — whether it 
 asserts in arrogant strains that Britannia rules the 
 waves, or speaks of "manifest destiny" and the 
 supremacy of the " Stars and Stripes," or boasts that the 
 Eagles of one nation, having once overrun Europe, 
 may possibly repeat the experiment, — I say all this is to 
 be condemned. It is not truly patriotic; it is not 
 rational ; it is not moral. Then, I say, if any man 
 wishes the Great Republic to be severed on that 
 ground : in my opinion, he is doing that which tends to 
 keep alive jealousies which, as far as he can prevent it, 
 will never die ; though if they do not die, wars must be 
 eternal. 
 
 But then I shall be told that the people of the North 
 do not like us at all. ... It is not reasonable that 
 they should like us. If an American be in this room 
 to-night, will he feel that he likes my honourable 
 Friend ? But if the North does not like England, does 
 anybody believe the South does ? It does not appear to 
 me to be a question of liking or disliking. Everybody 
 knows that when the South was in power, — and it has
 
 America 79 
 
 been in power for the last fifty years, — everybody knows 
 that hostility to this country, wherever it existed in 
 America, was cherished and stimulated to the utmost 
 degree by some of those very men who are now leaders 
 of this very insurrection. 
 
 My hon. Friend read a passage about the Alabama. I 
 undertake to say that he is not acquainted with the 
 facts about the Alabama. That he will acknowledge, I 
 think. The Government of this country have admitted 
 that the building of the Alabama, and her sailing from 
 the Mersey, was a violation of international law. In 
 America they say, and they say here, that the Alabama 
 is a ship of war ; that she was built in the Mersey ; 
 that she was built, and I have reason to believe it, by a 
 member of the British Parliament ; that she is furnished 
 with guns of English manufacture ; that she is manned 
 almost entirely by Englishmen ; and that these facts 
 were represented, as I know they were represented, to 
 the collector of customs in Liverpool, who pooh-poohed 
 them, and said there was nothing in them. He was 
 requesced to send the facts up to London to the 
 Customs' authorities, and their solicitor, not a very 
 wise man, but probably in favour of breaking up the 
 Republic, did not think them of much consequence ; 
 but afterwards the opinion of an eminent counsel, Mr. 
 Collier, the Member for Plymouth, was taken, and he 
 stated distinctly that what was being done in Liverpool 
 was a direct infringement of the Foreign Enlistment 
 Act, and that the Customs' authorities of Liverpool 
 would be responsible for anything that happened in 
 consequence. 
 
 When this opinion was taken to the Foreign Office, 
 the Foreign Office was a little astonished and a little 
 troubled ; and after they had consulted their own law 
 officers, whose opinions agreed with that of Mr. Collier, 
 they did what Government officers generally do, and as 
 promptly, — a telegraphic message went down to Liver- 
 pool to order that this vessel should be seized, and she 
 happened to sail an hour or two before the message 
 arrived. She has never been into a Confederate port 
 — they have not got any ports ; she hoists the English
 
 80 Bright's Speeches 
 
 flag when she wants to come alongside a ship ; she sets 
 a ship on fire in the night, and when, seeing fire, 
 another ship bears down to lend help, she seizes it, and 
 pillages and burns it. I think that, if we were citizens 
 of New York, it would require a little more calmness 
 than is shown in this country to look at all this as if it 
 was a matter with which we had no concern. And 
 therefore I do not so much blame the language that 
 has been used in America in reference to the question 
 of the A labama. 
 
 But they do not know in America so much as we 
 know — the whole truth about public opinion here. 
 There are Ministers in our Cabinet as resolved to be no 
 traitors to freedom, on this question, as I am ; and 
 there are members of the English aristocracy, and in 
 the very highest rank, as I know for a certainty, who 
 hold the same opinion. They do not know in America 
 — at least, there has been no indication of it until the 
 advices that have come to hand within the last two days 
 — what is the opinion of the great body of the working 
 classes in England. There has been every effort that 
 money and malice could make to stimulate in Lanca- 
 shire, amongst the suffering population, an expression 
 of opinion in favour of the Slave States. They have 
 not been able to get it. And I honour that population 
 for their fidelity to principles and to freedom, and I say 
 that the course they have taken ought to atone in the 
 minds of the people of the United States for miles of 
 leading articles, written by the London press, — by men 
 who would barter every human right, — that they might 
 serve the party with which they are associated. 
 
 But now I shall ask you one other question before I 
 sit down, — How comes it that on the Continent there is 
 not a liberal newspaper, nor a liberal politician, that 
 has said, or has thought of saying, a word in favour of 
 this portentous and monstrous shape which now asks 
 to be received into the family of nations ? Take the 
 great Italian Minister, Count Cavour. You read some 
 time ago in the papers part of a despatch which he 
 wrote on the question of America — he had no difficulty 
 in deciding. Ask Garibaldi. Is there in Europe a
 
 America 8 1 
 
 more disinterested and generous friend of freedom than 
 Garibaldi ? Ask that illustrious Hungarian, to whose 
 marvellous eloquence you once listened in this hall. 
 Will he tell you that slavery has nothing to do with it, 
 and that the slaveholders of the South will liberate the 
 negroes sooner than the North through the instru- 
 mentality of the war ? Ask Victor Hugo, the poet of 
 freedom, — the exponent, may I not call him, of the 
 yearnings of all mankind for a better time ? Ask any 
 man in Europe who opens his lips for freedom, — who 
 dips his pen in ink that he may indite a sentence for 
 freedom, — whoever has a sympathy for freedom warm 
 in his own heart, — ask him, — he will have no difficulty 
 in telling you on which side your sympathies should lie. 
 
 Only a few days ago a German merchant in 
 Manchester was speaking to a friend of mine, and said 
 he had recently travelled all through Germany. He said, 
 "I am so surprised, — I don't find one man in favour 
 of the South." That is not true of Germany only, it is 
 true of all the world except this island, famed for free- 
 dom, in which we dwell. I will tell you what is the 
 reason. Our London press is mainly in the hands of 
 certain ruling West End classes ; it acts and writes in 
 favour of those classes. I will tell you what they 
 mean. One of the most eminent statesmen in this 
 country, — one who has rendered the greatest services to 
 the country, though, I must say, not in an official 
 capacity, in which men very seldom confer such great 
 advantages upon the country, — he told me twice, at an 
 interval of several months, " I had no idea how much 
 influence the example of that Republic was having upon 
 opinion here, until I discovered the universal congra- 
 tulation that the Republic was likely to broken be up." 
 
 But, Sir, the Free States are the home of the working 
 man. Now, I speak to working men particularly at 
 this moment. Do you know that in fifteen years two 
 million five hundred thousand persons, men, women, 
 and children, have left the United Kingdom to find a 
 home in the Free States of America ? That is a popu- 
 lation equal to eight great cities of the size of Birming- 
 ham. What would you think of eight Birminghams 
 
 F
 
 82 B right's Speeches 
 
 being transplanted from this country and set down in 
 the United States ? Speaking generally, every man of 
 these two and a half millions is in a position of much 
 higher comfort and prosperity than he would have been 
 if he had remained in this country. I say it is the home 
 of the working man ; as one of her poets has recently 
 said : 
 
 •■ For her free latch-string never was drawn in 
 Against the poorest child of Adam's kin." 
 
 And in that land there are no six millions of grown 
 men — I speak of the Free States — excluded from the 
 constitution of their country and its electoral franchise ; 
 there, you will find a free Church, a free school, free 
 land, a free vote, and a free career for the child of the 
 humblest born in the land. My countrymen who work 
 for your living, remember this : there will be one wild 
 shriek of freedom to startle all mankind if that American 
 Republic should be overthrown. 
 
 Now for one moment let us lift ourselves, if we can, 
 above the narrow circle in which we are all too apt to 
 live and think ; let us put ourselves on an historical 
 eminence, and judge this matter fairly. Slavery has 
 been, as we all know, the huge, foul blot upon the fame 
 of the American Republic ; it is a hideous outrage 
 against human right and against Divine law ; but the 
 pride, the passion of man, will not permit its peaceable 
 extinction. The slave-owners of our colonies, if they 
 had been strong enough, would have revolted too. I 
 believe there was no mode short of a miracle more 
 stupendous than any recorded in Holy Writ that could 
 in our time, or in a century, or in any time, have 
 brought about the abolition of slavery in America, but 
 the suicide which the South has committed and the war 
 which it has begun. 
 
 Sir, it is a measureless calamity, — this war. I said 
 the Russian war was a measureless calamity, and yet 
 many of your leaders and friends told you that it was 
 a just war to maintain the integrity of Turkey, some 
 thousands of miles off. Surely the integrity of your 
 own country at your own doors must be worth as much
 
 America 83 
 
 as the integrity of Turkey. Is not this war the penalty 
 which inexorable justice exacts from America, North 
 and South, for the enormous guilt of cherishing that 
 frightful iniquity of slavery for the last eighty years ? 
 I do not blame any man here who thinks the cause of 
 the North hopeless and the restoration of the Union 
 impossible. It may be hopeless ; the restoration may 
 be impossible. You have the authority of the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer on that point. The Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, as a speaker, is not surpassed by 
 any man in England, and he is a great statesman ; he 
 believes the cause of the North to be hopeless ; that 
 their enterprise cannot succeed. 
 
 Well, he is quite welcome to that opinion, and so is 
 anybody else. I do not hold the opinion ; but the facts 
 are before us all, and, as far as we can discard passion 
 and sympathy, we are all equally at liberty to form our 
 own opinion. But what I do blame is this. I blame 
 men who are eager to admit into the family of nations 
 a State which offers itself to us, based upon a principle, 
 I will undertake to say, more odious and more blas- 
 phemous than was ever heretofore dreamed of in 
 Christian or Pagan, in civilized or in savage times. 
 The leaders of this revolt propose this monstrous thing 
 — that over a territory forty times as large as England, 
 the blight and curse of slavery shall be for ever per- 
 petuated. 
 
 I cannot believe, for my part, that such a fate will 
 befall that fair land, stricken though it now is with the 
 ravages of war. I cannot believe that civilization, in 
 its journey with the sun, will sink into endless night in 
 order to gratify the ambition of the leaders of this 
 revolt, who seek to 
 
 "Wade through slaughter to a throne, 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind." 
 
 I have another and a far brighter vision before my gaze. 
 It may be but a vision, but I will cherish it. I see one 
 vast confederation stretching from the frozen North in 
 unbroken line to the glowing South, and from the wild 
 billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters 
 
 f 2
 
 84 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of the Pacific main, — and I see one people, and one 
 language, and one law, and one faith, and, over all that 
 wide continent, the home of freedom, and a refuge for 
 the oppressed of every race and of every clime. 
 
 VII 
 
 AMERICA— III.: THE STRUGGLE IN 
 AMERICA 
 
 St. James's Hall, March 26, 1863. 
 
 [The meeting at which this speech was delivered was convened by 
 the Trades' Unions of London to enable the working men to 
 express their sentiments on the war in the United States. 
 Mr. Bright was Chairman of the meeting.] 
 
 I should hope that this question is now so plain that 
 most Englishmen must understand it ; and least of all 
 do I expect that the six millions of men in the United 
 Kingdom who are not enfranchised can have any doubt 
 upon it. Their instincts are always right in the main, 
 and if they get the facts and information, I can rely on 
 their influence being thrown into the right scale. I 
 wish I could state what would be as satisfactory to 
 myself with regard to some others. There may be men 
 outside, there are men sitting amongst your legislators, 
 who will build and equip corsair ships to prey upon the 
 commerce of a friendly power, — who will disregard the 
 laws and the honour of their country, — who will trample 
 on the Proclamation of their sovereign, — and who, for 
 the sake of the glittering profit which sometimes waits 
 on crime, are content to cover themselves with ever- 
 lasting infamy. There may be men, too — rich men — 
 in this city of London, who will buy in the slave- 
 owners' loan, and who, for the chance of more gain than 
 honest dealing will afford them, will help a conspiracy 
 whose fundamental institution, whose corner-stone, is 
 declared to be felony, and infamous by the statutes of 
 their country. 
 
 I speak not to these men — I leave them to their con- 
 science in that hour which comes to all of us, when
 
 America 85 
 
 conscience speaks and the soul is no longer deaf to her 
 voice. I speak rather to you, the working men of 
 London, the representatives, as you are here to-night, 
 of the feelings and the interests of the millions who 
 ca'nnot hear my voice. I wish you to be true to your- 
 selves. Dynasties may fall, aristocracies may perish, 
 privilege will vanish into the dim past ; but you, your 
 children, and your children's children, will remain, and 
 from you the English people will be continued to 
 succeeding generations. 
 
 You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it 
 for yourselves. You strive for it in many ways. Do 
 not then give the hand of fellowship to the worst foes 
 of freedom that the world has ever seen, and do not, I 
 beseech you, bring down a curse upon your cause which 
 no after-penitence can ever lift from it. You will not 
 do this. I have faith in you. Impartial history will 
 tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or coldly 
 neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, 
 when your press — which ought to have instructed and 
 defended — was mainly written to betray, the fate of 
 a continent and of its vast population being in peril, you 
 clung to freedom with an unfaltering trust that God in 
 His infinite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all 
 His children. 
 
 VIII 
 IRELAND 
 
 (from hansard) 
 House of Commons, March 14, 1868. 
 
 [This speech was spoken on the occasion of a proposition by Mr. 
 -Maguire, M.P. for Cork, for "a Committee of the whole House 
 to consider the state of Ireland."] 
 
 It is said by eminent censors of the press that this de- 
 bate will yield about thirty hours of talk, and will end 
 in no result. I have observed that all great questions 
 in this country require thirty hours of talk many times
 
 86 Bright's Speeches 
 
 repeated before they are settled. There is much 
 shower and much sunshine between the sowing of the 
 seed and the reaping of the harvest, but the harvest is 
 generally reaped after all. 
 
 1 was very much struck with what happened on the 
 fust night of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member 
 for Cork, in the opening portion of his address, described 
 the state of Ireland from his point of view, and the 
 facts he stated are not and cannot be disputed. He 
 said that the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended 
 for three years in his country — that within the island 
 there was a large military force, amounting, as we have 
 heard to-night — besides 12,000 or more of armed police 
 — to an army of 20,000 men — that in the harbours of 
 Ireland there were ships of war, and in her rivers there 
 were gunboats ; and that throughout that country — as 
 throughout this — -there has been and is yet considerable 
 alarm with regard to the discontent prevalent in 
 Ireland. 
 
 All that is quite true ; but when the noble Lord the 
 Chief Secretary opened his speech, the first portion of 
 it was of a very different complexion. I am willing to 
 admit that to a large extent it was equally true. He 
 told us that the condition of the people of Ireland was 
 considerably better now than it was at the time of the 
 Devon Commission. At the time of the Devon Com- 
 mission the condition of that country had no parallel in 
 any civilized and Christian nation. By the force of 
 famine, pestilence, and emigration, the population was 
 greatly diminished, and it would be a very extraordinary 
 thing indeed if with such a diminution of the population 
 there was no improvement in the condition of those who 
 remained behind. He showed that wages are higher, 
 and he pointed to the fact that in the trade in and out 
 of the Irish ports they had a considerable increase, and 
 though I will not say that some of those comparisons 
 were quite accurate or fair, I am on the whole ready to 
 admit the truth of the statement the noble Lord made. 
 But now it seems to me that, admitting the truth of 
 what my hon. Friend the Member for Cork said, and 
 admitting equally the truth of what the noble Lord
 
 Ireland 87 
 
 said, there remains before us a question even more 
 grave than any we have had to discuss in past years 
 with regard to the condition of Ireland. 
 
 If — and this has been already referred to by more 
 than one speaker — if it be true that with a considerable 
 improvement in the physical condition of the people — 
 if it be true that with a universality of education much 
 beyond that which exists in this island — if it be true 
 that after the measures that have been passed, and have 
 been useful, there still remains in Ireland, first of all, 
 what is called Fenianism, which is a reckless and daring 
 exhibition of feeling — beyond that a very wide discon- 
 tent and disloyalty — and beyond that, amongst the 
 whole of the Roman Catholic population, universal dis- 
 satisfaction — and if that be so, surely my hon. Friend the 
 Member for Cork — one of the most useful and eminent 
 of the representatives of Ireland — is right in bringing 
 this question before the House. And there is no 
 question at this moment that we could possibly discuss 
 connected with the interest or honour of the people 
 that approaches in gravity and magnitude to that now 
 before us. And if this state of things be true — and 
 remember I have said nothing but what the hon. 
 Member for Cork has said, and I have given my ap- 
 proval to nothing he has said that was not confirmed 
 by the speech of the noble Lord — if this be true, surely 
 all this great effect must have some cause. 
 
 We are unworthy of our position as Members of this 
 House, and representatives of our countrymen, if we do 
 not endeavour at least to discover the cause, and if we 
 can discover it, speedily to apply a remedy. The cause 
 is perfectly well known to both sides of the House. 
 The noble Lord, it is clear, knows it even from the 
 tenor of his own speech — he spoke of the question of 
 the land, and of the Church. The noble Lord the 
 Member for King's Lynn . . . referred to an absentee 
 aristocracy and an alien Church. I would not say a 
 syllable about the aristocracy in this matter ; if I had 
 to choose a phrase, I would rather say an absentee 
 proprietary and an alien Church. 
 
 What is the obvious remedy which for this state of
 
 Bright's Speeches 
 
 things has been found to be sufficient in every other 
 i ountry ? Ill could do so by any means that did not 
 violate the rights of property, I should be happy to give 
 to a considerable portion of the farmers of Ireland some 
 proprietary rights, and to remove from that country the 
 sense of injustice, and the sense— the strongest of all — 
 i he injustice caused by the existence of an alien 
 Church. Just for a moment look at the proposition the 
 noble Lord is about to submit to the House. It is very 
 like the Bill of last year. I will not enter into the 
 details, except to say that he proposes, as he proposed 
 then, that the Government should lend the tenant- 
 farmers of Ireland sums of money, by which they would 
 make improvements, which sums of money were to be 
 repaid by some gradual process to the Government 
 authorities. He proposes that the repayment should 
 be spread over a considerable number of years — I do 
 not know the exact number, and it is not of importance 
 for my argument. These tenant-farmers are very 
 numerous — perhaps too numerous, it may be, for the 
 good of the country — but there they are, and we must 
 deal with them as we find them. The number of them 
 holding under 15 acres is 250,000; holding between 15 
 acres and 30 acres, 136,000 ; holding over 30 acres, 
 158,000 — altogether there are more than 540,000 holders 
 ol land. It is to these 540,000 land-holders or occupiers 
 that the noble Lord proposes to lend money, on the 
 condition that they make certain improvements, and 
 repay after a certain number of years the sums advanced 
 to them. I think I am right in saying that there is no 
 limitation in the Bill as to the smallness of the holding 
 to which the advance cf money will be refused ; and 
 therefore the whole 540,000 tenants will be in a position 
 to come to the Government, or to some Commission, or 
 to the Board of Works, or to some authority in Ireland, 
 and ask for money to enable them to improve their 
 farms. 
 
 The House will see that if this plan is to produce 
 any considerable result, it will be the source of a 
 number of transactions such as the Government have 
 not had to deal with in any other matter; and I expect
 
 Ireland 89 
 
 that the difficulties will be very great, and that the 
 working out of the plan with any beneficial results will 
 be altogether impossible. What I ask the House is 
 this — if it be right of the noble Lord, to enable him to 
 carry out his plan, to ask the House to pass a measure 
 like this — to lend all these tenants the money for im- 
 provements to be repaid after a series of years, would 
 it not be possible for us by a somewhat similar process, 
 and by some step farther in the same direction, to 
 establish to some extent — I am not speaking of extend- 
 ing it all through Ireland — a farmer proprietary through- 
 out the country ? If it be right and proper to lend 
 money to improve, it surely may be proper, if it be on 
 other grounds judicious, to lend money to buy. 
 
 Now, I am as careful as any man can be, I believe, 
 of doing anything by law that shall infringe what you 
 think and what I think are the rights of property. I 
 do not pretend to believe, if you examine the terms 
 strictly, in what is called the absolute property in land. 
 You may toss a sixpence into the sea if you like, but 
 there are things with respect to land which you cannot, 
 and ought not, and dare not do. But I do not want to 
 argue the question of legislation upon that ground. I 
 am myself of opinion that there is no class in the com- 
 munity more interested in a strict adherence to the 
 principles of political economy, worked out in a benevo- 
 lent and just manner, than the humblest and poorest 
 class in the country. I think they have as much 
 interest in it as the rich, and the House has never 
 known me, and so long as I stand here will never know 
 me, I believe, to propose or advocate anything which 
 shall interfere with what I believe to be, and what if a 
 landowner I would maintain to be, the just right of 
 property in the land. 
 
 But, then, I do not think, as some persons seem to 
 think, that the land is really only intended to be in the 
 hand:: of the rich. I think that is a great mistake. I 
 am not speaking of the poor — for the poor man, in the 
 ordinary meaning of the term, cannot be the possessor 
 of land ; but what I wish is, that farmers and men of
 
 go Bright's Speeches 
 
 moderate means should become possessors of land and 
 of their farms. About two centuries ago, two very 
 celebrated nun endeavoured to form a constitution for 
 Carolina, which was then one of the colonies of this 
 country in America. Lord Shaftesbury, the statesman, 
 and Mr. Locke, the philosopher, framed a constitution 
 with the notion of having great proprietors all over the 
 country, and men under them to cultivate it. I recol- 
 lect that Mr. Bancroft, the historian of the United 
 Slates, describing the issue of that attempt and its utter 
 failure, says : " The instinct of aristocracy dreads the 
 moral power of a proprietary yeomanry, and therefore 
 the perpetual degradation of the cultivators of the soil 
 was enacted." There is no country in the world, in 
 which there are only great landowners and tenants, 
 with no large manufacturing interest to absorb the 
 population, in which the degradation of the cultivating 
 tenant is not completely assured. 
 
 I hope that hon. Members opposite, and hon. Gentle- 
 men on this side who may be disposed in some degree 
 to sympathize with them, will not for a moment imagine 
 that I am discussing this question in any spirit of 
 hostility to the landowners of Ireland. I have always 
 argued that the landowners of Ireland, in their treat- 
 ment of this question, have grievously mistaken not 
 only the interests of the population, but their own. I 
 was told the other day by a Member of this House, 
 who comes from Ireland, and is eminently capable of 
 giving a sound opinion upon the point, that he believed 
 the whole of Ireland might be bought at about twenty 
 years' purchase ; but you know that the land of Eng- 
 land is worth thirty years' purchase, and I believe a 
 great deal of it much more, — and it is owing to circum- 
 stances which legislation may in a great degree remove 
 that the land of Ireland is worth at this moment so 
 much less than the land of England. Coming back to 
 the question of buying farms, I put it to the House 
 whether, if it be right to lend to landlords for improve- 
 ments, and to tenants for improving the farms of their 
 landlords, to those who propose to carry on public 
 works, and to repair the ravages of the cattle plague, I
 
 Ireland 91 
 
 ask whether it is not also right for them to lend money 
 in cases where it may be advantageous to landlords, and 
 where they may be very willing to consent to it, to 
 establish a portion of the tenant-farmers of Ireland as 
 proprietors of their farms. 
 
 Now, bear in mind that I have never spoken about 
 peasant proprietors. I do not care what name you give 
 them ; I am in favour of more proprietors, and some, 
 of course, will be small and some will be large ; but it 
 would be quite possible for Parliament, if it thought 
 fit to attempt anything of this kind, to fix a limit below 
 which it would not assist the owner to sell or the 
 purchaser to buy. I believe that you can establish a 
 class of moderate proprietors, who will form a body 
 intermediate between the great owners of land and 
 those who are absolutely landless, which will be of im- 
 mense service in giving steadiness, loyalty, and peace to 
 the whole population of the island. The noble Lord 
 the Chief Secretary, knows perfectly well at what price 
 he could lend that money, and I will just state to the 
 House one fact which will show how the plan would 
 work. If you were to lend money at 3^ per cent., in 
 thirty-five years the tenant, paying 5 per cent., would 
 have paid the whole money back and all the interest 
 due on it, and would become the owner of his farm ; 
 and if you were to take the rate at which you have lent 
 to the Harbour Commissioners, and to repair the 
 ravages of the cattle plague, which is 3^ per cent., of 
 course the whole sum would be paid back in a shorter 
 period. Therefore, in a term which in former times 
 was not unusual in the length of leases in Ireland, 
 namely, thirty-one years, the tenant purchasing his 
 farm, without his present rent being raised, would repay 
 to the Government the principal and interest of the sum 
 borrowed for that purpose, would become the owner of 
 his farm, and during the whole of that time would have 
 absolute fixity of tenure, because every year he would 
 be saving more and more, adding field to field, and at 
 the end of the time he would be the proprietor of the 
 soil. 
 
 Let not the House imagine that I am proposing to
 
 92 Bright's Speeches 
 
 buy up the whole of the land. I am proposing only to 
 lmy it in cases where men are willing to sell, arid to 
 transfer it only in cases where men are able and willing 
 to buy, and you must know as well as I that there will 
 be many thousands of such cases in a few years. Every 
 Irish proprietor opposite . . . must know perfectly well 
 that amongst the tenantry of Ireland there is a con- 
 siderable sum of saved money not invested in farms. 
 Well, that saved money would all come out to carry 
 into effect transactions of this nature ; and you will find 
 the most extraordinary efforts made by thousands of 
 tenants to become possessors of their farms by invest- 
 ing their savings in them, by obtaining it may be the 
 assistance of their friends, and by such an industrious 
 and energetic cultivation of the soil as has scarcely ever 
 been seen in Ireland. I said there were landlords 
 willing to sell, and there are cases in which, probably, 
 Parliament might insist upon a sale — for instance, the 
 lands of the London Companies. I never heard of 
 much good that was done by all the money of the 
 London Companies. I was once invited to a dinner by 
 one of these Companies, and certainly it was of a very 
 sumptuous and substantial character, but I believe that, 
 if the tenants of these Companies were proprietors of 
 the lands they cultivate, it would be a great advantage 
 to the counties in which they are situated. I come 
 then to this : I would negotiate with landowners who 
 were willing to sell and tenants who were willing to 
 buy, and I would make the land the great savings-bank 
 for the future tenantry of Ireland. If you like, I 
 would limit the point to which we might go down in 
 the transference of farms, but I would do nothing in 
 the whole transaction which was not perfectly acquiesced 
 in by both landlord and tenant, and I would pay the 
 landlord every shilling he could fairly demand in the 
 market for the estate he proposed to sell. 
 
 Well, I hope every Gentleman present will acquit me 
 of intending confiscation, and that we shall have no 
 further misunderstanding upon that point. I venture 
 to say to the noble Lord that this is a plan which would 
 be within compass and management, as compared with
 
 Ireland 93 
 
 that laid down in his Bill, if it worked at all, and I 
 believe that it would do a hundred times as much good, 
 in putting the farmer upon the footing of a holder of 
 land in Ireland. What do hon. Gentlemen think would 
 become of an American Fenian if he came over to Ire- 
 land and happened to spend an evening with a number 
 of men who had got possession of their farms. I 
 remember my old friend Mr. Stafford, in the county of 
 Wexford, whom I called upon in 1849, who had bought 
 his farm and had built upon it the best farm-house 
 which I saw in the whole South of Ireland, and who 
 told me that if all the tenantry of Ireland had security 
 for their holdings— he was an old man, and could not 
 easily rise from his chair, though he made an effort to 
 do so — " If they had the security that I have," said he, 
 " we'd bate the hunger out of Ireland." If the Fenian 
 spent his evening with such men as these, and proposed 
 his reckless schemes to them, not a single farmer would 
 listen to him for a moment. Their first impression 
 would be that he was mad ; their second, perhaps, that 
 the whisky had been too strong for him ; and it would 
 end, no doubt, if he persisted in his efforts to seduce 
 them from their allegiance to the Imperial Government, 
 by their turning him off the premises, though perhaps, 
 knowing that he could do no harm, they might not 
 hand him over to the police. 
 
 The other day I passed through the county of 
 Somerset, and through villages that must be well 
 known to many Gentlemen here — Rodney-Stoke and 
 Drayford, I think they were called — and I noticed a 
 great appearance of life and activity about the neigh- 
 bourhood. I asked the driver of the carriage which 
 had brought me from Wells what was the cause of it. 
 "Why," he said, "don't you know that is the place 
 where the great sale took place?" "What sale?" I 
 asked. " Oh ! the sale of the Duke's property." " What 
 Duke ?" " The Duke of Buckingham. Did you never 
 hear of it ? About fifteen years ago his property was 
 sold in lots, and the people bought all the farms. You 
 never saw such a stir in the world." He pointed out 
 the houses on the hillside which had been built to
 
 94 Bright's Speeches 
 
 replace old tumble-down tenements, the red soil appear- 
 ing under the plough, and cultivation going on with 
 such general activity as had not been witnessed till 
 within these last few years. The appearance of these 
 villages was such as must strike every traveller from 
 another part of the country, and it was produced by 
 simple means. The great estate of an embarrassed 
 Duke had been divided and sold off; he had not been 
 robbed ; the old miserable hovels of the former tenants 
 had been pulled down, and new life and activity had 
 been given to the whole district. If you could have 
 such a change as this in Ireland, you would see such a 
 progress and prosperity that gentlemen would hardly 
 know the district from which they came. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 If the landowners had been a little wiser we might 
 not have had before us to-night the difficulty that now 
 perplexes us. Suppose, for example, they had not been 
 tempted to coerce or to make use of the votes of their 
 tenants ; suppose they had not been tempted to with- 
 hold leases — undoubtedly the condition of Ireland would 
 have been far superior to what it now is. My hon. 
 Friend the Member for Westminster has some scruples, 
 I believe, on the question of the ballot, but I believe 
 even he would not object to see that admirable machinery 
 of election tried in that country. Do hon. Gentlemen 
 think it not necessary ? I was talking, only two days 
 ago, to a Member of this House who sat on one of the 
 Irish election committees — the Waterford committee, 
 I think — and he said: "We could not unseat the 
 Members, though the evidence went to show a frightful 
 state of things ; it was one of the most orderly elections 
 they have in that country — only three men killed and 
 twenty-eight seriously wounded." After all, we may 
 smile, and some of you may laugh at this, but it is not 
 a thing to be laughed at. It is a very serious matter, 
 but it exists in no country in the world where the 
 ballot is in operation. 
 
 If you were to try that mode of election in Ireland it 
 would have two results : it would make your elections 
 perfectly tranquil, and at the same time it would with-
 
 Ireland 95 
 
 draw from the landowner — and a most blessed thing 
 for the landowner himself this would be — it would 
 withdraw from him the great temptation to make use of 
 his tenant's vote for the support of his own political 
 party ; and if that temptation were withdrawn, you 
 would have much more inducement to grant leases to 
 many of your tenants, and you would take a step 
 highly favourable, not to the prosperity of your tenants 
 only, but to your own prosperity and your own honour. 
 Now, Sir, I shall say no more upon that question except 
 this, that I feel myself at a disadvantage in making a 
 proposition of this nature to a House where landowners 
 are so numerous and so powerful, but I have disarmed 
 them in so far that they will see that I mean them no 
 harm, and that what I propose is not contrary to the 
 principles of political economy ; and that if Govern- 
 ment is at liberty to lend money for all the purposes to 
 which I have referred, Government must be equally 
 at liberty to lend money for this greater purpose ; and, 
 further, I venture to express my opinion, without the 
 smallest hesitation or doubt, that if this were done to 
 the extent of creating some few scores of thousands of 
 farmer proprietors in Ireland, you would find that their 
 influence would be altogether loyal ; that it would 
 extend around throughout the whole country ; that 
 whilst you were adding to the security of Government 
 you would awaken industry in Ireland from its slumber, 
 and you would have the wealth which you have not had 
 before, and, with wealth, contentment and tranquillity in 
 its train. 
 
 Now, Sir, it may appear egotistical in me to make 
 one remark more, but I think if the House will not 
 condemn me I shall make it. Last year you did, under 
 the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman, accept a 
 proposition which I had taken several years of trouble 
 and labour to convince you was wise. On Wednesday 
 last, only two days ago, by an almost unanimous vote 
 you accepted a proposition with regard to another 
 matter, exactly in the form in which six or seven years 
 ago I had urged you to accept it. You in this House 
 recollect when Mr. Speaker had to give the casting
 
 96 Bright's Speeches 
 
 vote, amidst vast excitement in the House, on the 
 miserable question of Church Rates ; but now, on 
 Wednesday last, you accepted that Bill almost without 
 opposition ; and I presume that, except for the formality 
 of a third reading, we have done with the question for 
 ever. Now if you would kindly, I ask it as a favour — 
 if you would kindly for a moment forget things that 
 you read of me which are not favourable, and generally 
 which are not true, and if you would imagine that 
 though I have not an acre of land in Ireland, I can be 
 as honestly a friend of Ireland as the man who owns 
 half a county, it may be worth your while to consider 
 for your own interest, the interests of your tenants, the 
 security of the country from which you come, for the 
 honour of the United Kingdom, whether there is not 
 something in the proposition that I have made to you. 
 
 Now, Sir, perhaps the House will allow me to turn 
 to that other question which, on the authority of the 
 noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the 
 noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn, and indeed 
 on the authority of the Prime Minister himself, is con- 
 sidered the next greatest — perhaps I ought to have said 
 the greatest — question we have to consider in connec- 
 tion with Irish affairs ; I mean the Irish Church ques- 
 tion. What is it that is offered upon this matter by the 
 Government ? The noble Lord himself said very little 
 about it, but he is not easy upon it ; he knows perfectly 
 well, and cannot conceal it, that the Irish Church ques- 
 tion is at the root of every other question in Ireland. 
 The noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn said also 
 that it was, along with the land, the great and solemn 
 question which we had to discuss, and ... he turned round 
 almost with a look of despair, and implored somebody 
 to come and tell us what ought to be done on this Irish 
 question. And the Prime Minister himself, in speaking 
 of it, called it an " Alien Church." Bear that phrase in 
 mind. It is a strong phrase, a phrase we can all under- 
 stand, and we know that the right hon. Gentleman is a 
 great master of phrases — he says a word upon some 
 subject ; it sticks ; we all remember it, and this is some- 
 times a great advantage. " Alien Church " is the name
 
 Ireland 97 
 
 he gives it ; and now, what does the noble Lord, acting, 
 no doubt, under the direction of his Colleagues and the 
 Prime Minister, offer upon this question ? He rather 
 offered a defence of it ; he did not go into any argument, 
 but still, at the same time, he rather defied anybody to 
 make an assault upon it ; he believed that it would not 
 succeed, and that it was very wrong ; but what does he 
 really propose ? Only this : to add another buttress in 
 the shape of another bribe. He says that he will make 
 an offer to the Roman Catholic hierarchy and people of 
 Ireland — some say that the people do not want it, and 
 that the hierarchy do want it, but I say nothing about 
 that, because I hope the Catholic people of Ireland are 
 at least able to defend themselves from the hierarchy, 
 if the hierarchy wish to cripple them too much — he says 
 he will endow a Roman Catholic University in Ireland. 
 As the noble Lord went on with his speech he touched 
 upon the question of the Presbyterian Regium Donum, 
 and spoke of it, I think, as a miserable provision for the 
 Presbyterians of the North of Ireland ; and evidently, 
 if he had had the courage, the desperate courage to do 
 it, he would have proposed, whilst he was offering to 
 endow a new Roman Catholic University, to increase or 
 double the Regium Donum. The noble Lord does not 
 express any dissent from this, and I rather think he 
 wishes that it were safely done. The object of this, and 
 what he would like to have said to the hon. Gentleman 
 about him who came from Ireland to represent the 
 Roman Catholic population, and to the Presbyterians 
 of the North of Ireland, was this : " If you will continue 
 to support the Protestant Church in Ireland and the 
 Protestant supremacy, we will endow you (the Roman 
 Catholics) a University, really, if not professedly, under 
 clerical rule ; and as to you (the Presbyterians), we 
 will double your stipend by doubling the amount of the 
 Regium Donum." 
 
 Now, why do you offer anything ? Why is it we are 
 discussing this question ? Why did the noble Lord 
 think it necessary to speak for three hours and twenty 
 minutes on the subject ? Because the state of Ireland 
 is now very different from the state which we have 
 
 G
 
 98 Bright's Speeches 
 
 sometimes seen, and very different, I hope, from that 
 which many of us may live to see hereafter ; because 
 Ireland has a certain portion of its population rebellious, 
 has a larger portion disloyal and discontented, but has 
 a still larger portion dissatisfied with the Imperial rule. 
 Now I must say — I hope the noble Lord will not think 
 I am saying anything uncivil — but I must say that his 
 proposition appears to be at once grotesque and imbe- 
 cile, and I think at the same time — though I do not like 
 to use unpleasant words — that to a certain extent it 
 must be held to be . . . not only very wrong, but very dis- 
 honest. At this moment it seems to find no favour on 
 either side of the House, although I can understand the 
 Catholic Members of the House feeling themselves 
 bound to say nothing against it, and perhaps, if it came 
 to a division, to vote for it ; but I believe there is not a 
 Catholic Member on this side of the House who could 
 in his conscience say that it was right in him to accept 
 this proposition as a bribe that he should hereafter 
 support Protestant supremacy. 
 
 Now, does anybody believe that a Catholic University 
 in Ireland could have the smallest effect upon Fenianism, 
 or upon the disloyalty, discontent, and dissatisfaction of 
 which Fenianism is the latest and the most terrible 
 expression ? It is quite clear that for the evil which we 
 have to combat, the remedy which the right hon. 
 Gentleman offers through the Chief Secretary for 
 Ireland is no remedy at all. 
 
 It reminds me of an anecdote which is related by 
 Addison. He says that in his time there was a man 
 who made a living by cheating the country people. He 
 was not a Cabinet Minister, — he was only a mountebank, 
 — and he set up a stall, and sold pills that were very 
 good against the earthquake. Well, that is about the 
 state of things that we are in now. There is an earth- 
 quake in Ireland. Does anybody doubt it ? I will not 
 go into the evidence of it, but I will say that there has 
 been a most extraordinary alarm — some of it extrava- 
 gant, I will admit — throughout the whole of the three 
 kingdoms ; and although Fenianism may be but a low,
 
 Ireland 99 
 
 a reckless, and an ignorant conspiracy, the noble Lord 
 has admitted that there is discontent and disaffection in 
 the country ; and when the Member for one of the great 
 cities of Ireland comes forward and asks the Imperial 
 Parliament to discuss this great question — this social 
 and political earthquake under which Ireland is heaving 
 — the noble Lord comes forward and offers that there 
 shall be a clerical-governed endowed University for the 
 sons, I suppose, of the Catholic gentlemen of Ireland. 
 I have never heard a more unstatesmanlike or more 
 unsatisfactory proposition ; and I believe the entire 
 disfavour with which it has been received in this House 
 is only a proper representation of the condemnation 
 which it will receive from the great majority of the 
 people of the three kingdoms. 
 
 Do not let anyone suppose that I join in the terms 
 which I regretted to hear from the right hon. Gentle- 
 man the Member for Stroud, and still less that I join 
 in the, in my opinion, more offensive terms which fell 
 from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne. 
 There can be no good in our attacking either the 
 Catholic population or the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland. 
 We have our duty straight before us, which is to do 
 both the hierarchy and the people justice. We are not 
 called upon to support the plan of the Government, and 
 I believe the people of Great Britain, and a very large 
 portion of the people of Ireland, will rejoice when the 
 House of Commons shall reject a proposition which is 
 adverse to the course we have taken for many years 
 past, and a proposition which would have no better 
 effect in tranquillizing Ireland in the future than the 
 increase of the grant to Maynooth did more than twenty 
 years ago. Sir Robert Peel at that time, with the 
 most honourable and kindly feeling to Ireland, proposed 
 to increase the grant to Maynooth, and it was passed, I 
 think, by a large majority of the House, I being one of 
 a very few persons on this side of the House who 
 opposed the grant. I was as kindly disposed to the 
 Catholics of Ireland as Sir Robert Peel, but I was 
 satisfied that was^not the path of tranquillization, and 
 that if he trod that path it would before any long time 
 
 g 2
 
 ioo B right's Speeches 
 
 have to be retraced ; and I think, if you now proceed 
 upon the course recommended by the right hon. Gentle- 
 man, you will fail in the pacification of Ireland, and the 
 time will come when you will have to retrace the steps 
 he invites you to tread in now. 
 
 Now, Sir, I think we have arrived at this point of 
 the question— that we have absolutely arrived at it, 
 and there is no escape from it — that it does not matter 
 in the least whether the right hon. Gentleman sits on 
 the Treasury Bench, or whether the right hon. Member 
 for South Lancashire takes his place, or whether the 
 two should unite — which is a very bold figure of speech 
 —but I say that if the two should unite, it could not 
 alter this fact, that the Protestant supremacy, as 
 represented by a State Church in Ireland, is doomed, 
 and is, in fact, at an end. Whatever are the details, 
 and I admit that they will be very difficult details in 
 some particulars, which may be introduced into the 
 measure which shall enact the great change that the cir- 
 cumstances of Ireland and the opinion of the United 
 Kingdom have declared to be necessary, this, at least, we 
 have come to, that perfect religious equality henceforth, 
 and not only religious equality, but equality on the 
 voluntary principle, must be granted. 
 
 * * # * * 
 
 What is the condition of Ireland at this moment 
 with which you have to deal ? There is not only the 
 Church, which it is proposed to disestablish, but you 
 have the Regium Donum, which, if the Church be dis- 
 established, must necessarily be withdrawn ; and you 
 have, if these two things happen, a grant to Maynooth, 
 the Act conferring which must necessarily be repealed. 
 Now, in doing these things the House will observe that 
 we shall disturb all the three principal sects or Churches 
 in Ireland, and we can only do it, or attempt to do it, on 
 the ground that we are about to accomplish some great 
 public good. Well, my proposal, which some hon. 
 Gentlemen, I dare say, will have some vague idea of, 
 was made with the view of easing Parliament in the 
 great transaction, from which I believe it cannot escape. 
 It is a great thing in statesmanship, when you are about
 
 Ireland 101 
 
 to make a change which is inevitable, and which shocks 
 some, disturbs more, and makes hesitating people hesi- 
 tate still more — it is a great thing, I say, if you can 
 make the past slide into the future without any great 
 jar, and without any great shock to the feelings of the 
 people. And in doing these things the Government can 
 always afford to be generous and gracious to those whom 
 they are obliged to disturb. 
 
 We have found that this has been the case when 
 needful changes have been proposed ; for instance, hon. 
 Gentlemen will recollect, when tithe commutation for 
 Ireland was passed, that there was a certain concession 
 made to the landowners of Ireland, to induce them to 
 acquiesce in the proposition of Parliament. We know 
 that when slavery was abolished a considerable sum of 
 money was voted. Lord Derby proposed in this House 
 that compensation should be given to the slaveowners. 
 If it had not been for that, slavery would before long 
 have been abolished by violence. But Parliament 
 thought it was much better to take the step it did take, 
 and I am not, at this period of time, about for a moment 
 to dispute its wisdom. In all these things we endeavour, 
 if we are forced to make a great change, to make it in 
 such a manner as that we shall obtain the acquiescence 
 and the support, if possible, . of those who are most 
 likely to be nearly affected by it. Suppose we were 
 going to disestablish the Church of Scotland — and I 
 understand that there are a great number belonging to 
 the Established Church of Scotland who are coming 
 round to the opinion that it would be much to their 
 benefit, and I think for the benefit of their Church, if it 
 were disestablished— if we were going to disestablish 
 the Church of Scotland or the Church of England, no 
 person for a moment would suppose that, after having 
 taken all the tithes and all the income from these 
 Churches, you would also take all the churches and all 
 the parsonage-houses from the Presbyterian people of 
 Scotland, or from the Episcopal Church people in Eng- 
 land. You would not do anything of that kind. You 
 would do to them as we should wish, if we were in their 
 position, that the Government and Parliament should
 
 102 Brig'ht's Speeches 
 
 do to us. Do what you have to do thoroughly for the 
 good of the country, but do it in such a manner as 
 shall do least harm, and as shall gain the largest amount 
 acquiescence from those whom you are about to 
 affect. I venture to say that such is the course we 
 should take about Ireland. 
 
 I am very free in speaking on these matters. I am 
 not a Catholic in the sense of Rome. I am not a 
 Protestant in the sense in which that word is used in 
 Ireland. I am not connected with a powerful sect in 
 England. I think, from my training, and education, and 
 association, and thought on these questions, I stand in 
 a position which enables me to take as fair and unim- 
 passioned a view of the matter as perhaps any man in 
 the House. Now, if I were asked to give my advice, 
 and if I am not asked I shall give it — I should propose 
 that where there are congregations in Ireland — I am 
 speaking now, of course, of the present Established 
 Church — who would undertake to keep in repair the 
 church in which they have been accustomed to worship, 
 and the parsonage-house in which their ministers live, 
 Parliament should leave them in the possession of their 
 churches and of their parsonage-houses. And I believe 
 I speak the sentiment of every Catholic Member on this 
 side of the House, and probably of every intelligent 
 Catholic in Ireland, not only of the laity but of the hier- 
 archy and the priesthood, when I say that they would 
 regard such a course as that on the part of Parliament 
 as just, under the circumstances in which we are placed. 
 Well, then, of course there would be no more Bishops 
 appointed by the Crown, and that institution in Ireland 
 would come to an end, except it were continued upon 
 the principle upon which Bishops are appointed in Scot- 
 land. All State connection would be entirely abolished. 
 You would then have all alike. The Protestants would 
 have their churches and parsonage-houses as they have 
 now. But the repairs of them, and the support of their 
 ministers, would be provided by their congregations, or 
 by such an organization as they chose to form. The 
 Catholics would provide, as they have hitherto done so 
 meritoriously and with a remarkable liberality, for 
 themselves.
 
 Ireland 103 
 
 No greater instance of generosity and fidelity to their 
 Church can be seen in the world than that which has 
 been manifested by the Catholic people of Ireland. 
 They have their churches and their priests' houses in 
 many places. There is no pretence for meddling with 
 them. In the North of Ireland, where the Presbyterians 
 are most numerous, they would also have their places 
 of worship and their ministers' houses as they have now. 
 All the Churches, therefore, in that respect would be on 
 an equality. Well, now, the real point of this question, 
 and which will create in all probability much feeling in 
 Parliament and in the country, is, what should be done 
 on the question of the Maynooth Grant, and on the 
 question of the Regium Donum ? They must be treated 
 alike, I presume. If you preserve the life interests of 
 the ministers and Bishops of the Established Church, 
 it may be right to preserve the life interests of the 
 ministers of the Presbyterian Church, and it may be 
 right also in some way or other to make some provision 
 that shall not in the least degree bring them under the 
 control of the State. And some provision might have 
 to be made to the Catholic Church in lieu of the May- 
 nooth Grant, which, of course, you would be obliged to 
 withdraw. These are points which I will not discuss in 
 detail. I merely indicate them for the sake of showing 
 to the House, and to a great number of people who are 
 regarding it with even more feeling than we do, what 
 are some of the difficulties of this question — difficulties 
 which must be met — difficulties which it will require all 
 the moderation, all the Christian feeling, and all the 
 patriotism which this House can muster on both sides 
 of it, with the view of settling this question permanently 
 and to the general satisfaction of the three kingdoms. 
 Now, I will go no further, but to say that whatever is 
 done — if a single sixpence is given by Parliament, in 
 lieu of the Maynooth Grant, or in lieu of the Regium 
 Donum, it must be given on these terms only — and on 
 that matter I think Lord Russell has committed a great 
 error — that it becomes the absolute property of the 
 Catholics or of the Presbyterians — that it must be as 
 completely their property as the property of the great
 
 104 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Wesleyan body in this country, or of the Indepen- 
 dents, or of the Baptists, belongs to these bodies. 
 It must be property which Parliament can never pre- 
 tend to control, or regulate, or withdraw. 
 
 And having consented to that condition, the three 
 Churches of Ireland would be started as voluntary 
 Churches, and instead of fighting, as I am sorry to say 
 they have been fighting far longer than within the 
 memory of man, I hope soon there would be a compe- 
 tition among them which should do most for the educa- 
 tion, the morals, and the Christianity of the population 
 who are within their instruction and guidance. Now, 
 Protestants in this country — I think almost all Pro- 
 testants — object very strongly to Rome. The Noncon- 
 formists object to endowments. They sometimes, I 
 think, confound establishments with endowments. I 
 think it absolutely essential that establishments should 
 cease, and that there should be nothing in the way of 
 endowment unless it be some small provision such as 
 that which I have indicated, which it might be neces- 
 sary to make when you are withdrawing certain things 
 which the Churches in Ireland had supposed were 
 theirs in perpetuity. 
 
 Now, one word which I would say to the Noncon- 
 formist people of England and Scotland, if the House 
 will allow me to speak, is this — they should bear in 
 mind that the whole of this property which is now in 
 the possession of the Established Church of Ireland is 
 Irish property. It does not belong to Scotland or to 
 England, and it would be a measure intolerable and not 
 to be thought of, that it should be touched or dealt with 
 in any manner that is not in accordance with the feel- 
 ings and the interests of the people of Ireland. Let 
 any man who to-morrow criticizes this part of my 
 speech ask himself what an Irish Parliament, freely 
 elected, would do with the ecclesiastical funds of 
 Ireland. I think the Presbyterians of Scotland, the 
 Churchmen and Nonconformists of England, have no 
 right to suppose themselves to be judges with regard to 
 religious matters in Ireland. They have a perfect right 
 to say to Parliament, through their representatives,
 
 Ireland 105 
 
 "We will discontinue the State Church in Ireland, and 
 we will create no other State Churches." But that 
 seems to be about the extent of the interference which 
 they are entitled to in this matter. 
 
 I hope I have explained with tolerable clearness the 
 views which I have felt it my duty to lay before the 
 House on the occasion of this great question. The 
 House will see, and I think hon. Gentlemen opposite 
 will admit, that I am at least disposed to treat it as a 
 great question which, if it be dealt with, should be dealt 
 with in the most generous, gracious, and, if you like, 
 tender manner by Parliament, as respects the feelings 
 and interests of all who are most directly concerned. 
 The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in his 
 speech last night, said that this proposal to disestablish 
 the Established Church of Ireland was, in point of fact, 
 in some sort a revolution. This, at any rate, I am satis- 
 fied, would be not only an entirely bloodless revolution, 
 but a revolution full of blessing to the Irish people. 
 
 I have not said a word — 1 never said a word in this 
 House, and, I believe, never out of it, to depreciate the 
 character of the clergymen of the Established Church 
 in Ireland. I think no religious ministers are placed in 
 a more unfortunate position, and I am satisfied that 
 many of them feel it to be so. I have not the least 
 doubt, when this transaction is once accomplished, that 
 they will breathe more freely. I believe they will be 
 more potent in their ministrations, and that their in- 
 fluence, which must, or ought to be, considerable, will 
 be far more extensive than it has been, and far more 
 beneficial in the districts in which they live. But being 
 so great a question, as the Home Secretary described 
 it, it can only be settled by mutual and reasonable con- 
 cession. The main principle being secured, that State 
 Church supremacy is abolished in Ireland, and that the 
 Irish Churches are henceforth to be free Churches upon 
 the voluntary principle, then I should be willing, and I 
 would recommend every person in the country whom 
 my voice may reach, to make any reasonable concession 
 that can be suggested in the case. So anxious am I 
 that it should be done, that I should be delighted to co-
 
 106 Bright's Speeches 
 
 operate with the right hon. Gentleman, and with hon. 
 Members on the opposite side of the House, in support 
 of any just measure for settling this great question. 
 But I say, if it ever does come to be dealt with by a 
 great and powerful Minister, let it be dealt with in a 
 great and generous spirit. I would counsel to all men 
 moderation and justice. It is as necessary to Pro- 
 testants as to Catholics and to Nonconformists that 
 they should endeavour to get rid of passion in discuss- 
 ing this question. 
 
 We are, after all, of one religion. I imagine that 
 there will come a time in the history of the world when 
 men will be astonished that Catholics and Protestants 
 have had so much animosity against and suspicion of 
 each other. I accept the belief in a grand passage 
 which I once met with in the writings of the illustrious 
 founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. He says that 
 " The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout 
 souls are everywhere of one religion, and when death 
 has taken off the mask they will know one another, 
 though the diverse liveries they wear here make them 
 strangers." Now, may I ask the House to act in this 
 spirit, and then our work will be easy. The noble 
 Lord, towards the conclusion of his speech, spoke of 
 the cloud which rests at present over Ireland. It is a 
 dark and heavy cloud, and its darkness extends over 
 the feelings of men in all parts of the British Empire. 
 But there is a consolation which we may all take to 
 ourselves. An inspired King and bard and prophet has 
 left us words which are not only the expression of a 
 fact, but which we may take as the utterance of a 
 prophecy. He says, "To the upright there ariseth 
 light in the darkness." Let us try in this matter to be 
 upright. Let us try to be just. That cloud will be 
 dispelled. The dangers which surround us will vanish, 
 and we may yet have the happiness of leaving to our 
 children the heritage of an honourable citizenship in a 
 united and prosperous Empire.
 
 General Politics 107 
 
 IX 
 
 GENERAL POLITICS 
 
 Edinburgh, November 5, 1868. 
 
 On this day Mr. Bright was elected an Honorary Member of the 
 Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. Mr. George Harrison, 
 Chairman of the Chamber, in congratulating Mr. Bright on 
 being thus elected, stated that the Chamber had elected only 
 three Honorary Members — Sir John Sinclair, the distinguished 
 Scottish economist, in the last, and Mr. Gladstone and Mr. 
 Bright in the present century. In the evening Mr. Bright 
 addressed an audience of working men, and on a vote of 
 thanks being offered him for his pains in acceding to their 
 invitation during a contested election, made a brief speech 
 which concluded his addresses on this occasion. The speech 
 printed here is that which was addressed to the working 
 men.] 
 
 I rise for the purpose, first of all, of expressing how 
 greatly I feel indebted to the gentlemen of the Edinburgh 
 branch of the Reform League and of the trades of 
 Edinburgh for the kindness with which they have 
 prepared and presented to me the addresses which have 
 been read. I do not accept those addresses as in any 
 way binding those who have presented them to an 
 approval of all the course of my political life. 
 I accept them merely as tokens of the belief of 
 those from whom they come that whether we have 
 agreed, or whether on some occasions we have differed, 
 they at least believe that I have acted honourably and 
 conscientiously, as far as I know, for the best interests 
 of the country. 
 
 It is about ten years since I last spoke at a public 
 meeting in Edinburgh. Some who are now present 
 were doubtless present on that occasion, and they will 
 feel with me that in the ten years that has passed much 
 has happened, and much has been changed. At that 
 time the Government presided over by Lord Derby was 
 in office, and was engaged in attempting to prepare a 
 Reform Bill for the coming Session of Parliament. 
 That Reform Bill was framed upon the principle that
 
 108 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the Ministry would not consent to what the Govern- 
 ment of that day called " any degradation of the 
 franchise." They would have no lowering of the 
 barrier at which people were to be admitted to the vote. 
 The Bill failed, as it deserved to fail, and the Govern- 
 ment were expelled from office, as they deserved to be 
 expelled. Coming down to eight years after this — to 
 1866 — the party of whom I have spoken, being the 
 Government of ten years ago, objected to a Reform Bill 
 introduced by Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone, 
 and resisted it on the ground that they were not willing 
 to consent to such a degradation of the franchise as 
 should admit householders in towns who were occupiers 
 at the value of 7/. at least to the vote. They succeeded 
 in defeating the Bill, and the Government resigned, and 
 the same gentlemen immediately came into office, and 
 though they had been sensible that any degradation of 
 the franchise would be almost the ruin of the country, 
 that its degradation to a jl. rental was so perilous an 
 experiment that they dared not consent to it, in the 
 year 1867 they undertook to " degrade the franchise " to 
 the level of the householder. 
 
 The words " degradation of the franchise," as you 
 know, are not mine. I am using the language of those 
 gentlemen in order to express what I believe will be 
 found, instead of a degradation of the franchise, to be a 
 great elevation of the people. We have got, then, and 
 we need not exactly discuss how it has been effected, 
 what may be called a popular and democratic — in fact, 
 a Republican representation, so far as the boroughs of 
 the United Kingdom are concerned. The principle of 
 popular representation in Parliament, as it is adopted in 
 the colonies, and in the States of America, has been 
 conceded. Several boroughs have been disfranchised 
 because they were small ; towns have been erected into 
 new boroughs because the towns were large ; counties 
 have been divided because they were populous, and the 
 general principle has been admitted that we should 
 make some approximation to the distribution of seats 
 according to the population of the constituencies. 
 Besides this, everybody can see that another question is
 
 General Politics 109 
 
 coming forward for settlement — one which possibly may 
 not excite so much interest in Scotland as in England, 
 Wales, and Ireland. It is, however, one which is 
 closely related to the representation of the people. This 
 is the great question of the ballot. 
 
 The fact is — and I do not say so with any expression of 
 scorn or with any feeling of triumph — the aristocracy of 
 England which so lately governed the country has 
 abdicated, and its most boastful leader, Lord Derby, its 
 chief, in its name, and for it, has capitulated to the 
 people. One hundred and eighty years ago there was a 
 revolution in England. The revolution of 1688 had this 
 effect. It stripped the monarch of absolute power, and, 
 pretending to confer it upon the nation, conferred it 
 mainly upon the nobility. The Bill of 1832, combined 
 with the Bill of last year, gave us another revolution. 
 Power has not been taken from the Crown and given to 
 the nobility, but it has been taken from the nobility and 
 has been given henceforth and for ever to the people. 
 The form of aristocratic power yet remains. In every 
 country the possessors of great wealth are likely to have 
 power. I am not complaining of this ; but I am 
 stating a fact, which must be plain to all. But although 
 the influence of wealth is great, the spirit of the country 
 has changed, and the centre of power- has been moved. 
 We are, in fact, — do not let us attempt to conceal it from 
 ourselves, — standing on the threshold of a new career. 
 Being there, we need no longer have recourse to the 
 arguments which we have often heard from platforms 
 in times past, such indeed as I sometimes have been 
 ready to use. There is no longer a contest between us 
 and the House of Lords ; we need no longer bring 
 charges against a selfish oligarchy ; we no longer dread 
 the power of the territorial magnates ; we no longer 
 feel ourselves domineered over by a class ; we feel that 
 denunciation and invective now would be out of place ; 
 the power which hitherto has ruled over us is shifted. 
 We now have to appeal to you, to address our argu- 
 ments to you, to couple facts — if we are capable of 
 doing so — with wisdom, and, if we may, to counsel you, 
 so that you who are now part of the government of the
 
 i io Bright's Speeches 
 
 country may show in the acts which you do the 
 wisdom which you have learned. The fate of this 
 great nation is in the nation's hands : come weal, come 
 woe, the responsibility of the future must rest with the 
 mass of the people, for they are now admitted, at least 
 within the boroughs, to a large share of representation, 
 and thereby of political power. 
 
 But all is not done. There are some matters which 
 have to be adjusted ; for to confer the franchise is only 
 to give every man a key by which, if he is wise, he may 
 unlock the treasures which are open to a well-governed 
 people. This very Reform Bill, so extensive and so 
 remarkable as it is, has still many deficiencies. I do 
 not intend to go into details to show what must be done 
 in order to bring the county franchise into greater 
 harmony with the borough franchise. These are 
 details that must come up before long for discussion 
 before the people, and before Parliament ; but there is 
 one point to which I will refer, which I have indeed 
 already mentioned, and this is the shelter of the ballot. 
 I see in the papers a speech by a gentleman for whom 
 all who know him must have the highest and deepest 
 feeling of respect. I refer to one of the candidates for 
 the city of Westminster, Mr. John Stuart Mill. No man 
 is more fair in argument than Mr. Mill, no man is more 
 willing to admit the force of anything that an opponent 
 offers for his consideration ; but it is not necessary that 
 we should believe that Mr. Mill can know every 
 question better than anybody else — and, in saying that, 
 I say no more than he would be most willing to allow — but 
 in a speech which Mr. Mill made within the last two days 
 to some of his constituents, he says that he opposes the 
 ballot. He thinks— I do not quote his words — that 
 public duties should be performed publicly ; that by and 
 by there will be morality and power enough to put an 
 end not only to corruption, but to compulsion ; and he 
 compares the free and open exercise of the ballot to the 
 duty of a judge in a court of justice which is open to the 
 public eye. It appears to me that the comparison is 
 not a good one. The judge in open court has no 
 compulsion brought upon him ; he is independent ; the
 
 General Politics 1 1 1 
 
 Crown, which appointed him to his office, cannot 
 remove him ; he is not expected to deliver a judgment 
 in accordance with any feeling that he may have, but one 
 which is wholly in accordance with well-known and 
 recognized rules of law. If instead of stopping at the 
 Bench, Mr. Mill had gone into the jury-room, he would 
 have found that the jury, which is just as important in 
 this country in a trial as the judge, does sit apart from 
 the public eye, and more than that, that it is considered 
 a gross violation of confidence if any juryman should 
 convey to the public a knowledge of what has occurred in 
 the jury-room. I am not able to accept these glowing 
 pictures of the immediately improved morality of the 
 people. If it be wise not to bring in the ballot because 
 men without it will become strong enough not to need it, 
 it might be equally wise to dispense with the judge and 
 jury and the police ; for (who knows ?) at sometime 
 —it may be remote — men may become strong enough 
 in virtue, honest enough in their hearts, not to violate 
 the written or the moral law, and judges and juries and 
 courts of justice may no longer be required. 
 
 I look at the condition of things in this country and 
 in Ireland, where, as you know, a county contest is 
 little less than civil war ; in Wales, where all the 
 people, with scarcely any exception, being' Nonconfor- 
 mists in their religion and Liberal in their politics, have 
 hardly any opportunity of expressing their own opinions, 
 and hardly any influence in their county representation. 
 I look again at all the great constituencies of the 
 kingdom which have been created under this Bill, and 
 I am forced to conclude, as the new machinery of 
 electing a Parliament comes into working, that it will 
 be proved to every man, who is in favour of public 
 order at our political contests, that the ballot is abso- 
 lutely and indispensably necessary to secure order as 
 well as liberty. 
 
 Thereisanotherquestion which is nowbefore the public 
 which has received much consideration, and, I believe, 
 a wise verdict from the people of Scotland. That is 
 the Irish policy of the Liberal party in the late Par- 
 liament. We are about to try a great experiment, one
 
 1 1 2 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of the most notable experiments ever attempted by any 
 Government, or by any Parliament — we are about to 
 see whether we can win over the affections and sym- 
 pathies of a discontented and almost hostile people by 
 one grand, generous, and wise attempt to do them full 
 ami complete justice. It is unnecessary in Scotland to 
 point out how much an alien Church is necessarily a 
 root of bitterness ; your history teaches you all this in a 
 more marked manner, perhaps, than it has been taught 
 to any other country. I feel that I need only refer to 
 the appeals which have been made to you by the 
 Liberal candidates throughout Scotland to gain your 
 thorough and hearty consent to the great attempt to 
 establish perfect religious equality in Ireland. 
 
 But there will be another question by no means with- 
 out its difficulties when this question of the Church of 
 Ireland is settled, and that is with regard to the owner- 
 ship and tenure of land in that country. You know 
 nothing of this matter in Scotland from your 6wn ex- 
 perience. Although you have the misfortune to have 
 the land of your country in very few hands, still the 
 men who own it have been not a little alive— as Scotch- 
 men are generally supposed to be — to their own interests. 
 They have conducted their business as landowners 
 upon principles altogether unknown in Ireland. They 
 have granted leases of reasonable duration, and I believe 
 have given good encouragement to their tenants. They 
 have expended their own capital on the erection of 
 buildings, and in the making of certain permanent and 
 necessary improvements. The Scotch farmer entering 
 upon his farm could carry on his business with some 
 hope of success. But you are in a very different position 
 from the Irish. In Ireland the land really is not in the 
 possession of what I may call native proprietors, or 
 natives of the country, to any large extent. It seems 
 to me to be an essential thing for the peace of any 
 country that its soil should at least be in possession of 
 its own people. I believe that in Ireland it will be 
 necessary to adopt some plan — and I believe there is a 
 plan which can be adopted without injustice or wrong 
 to any man— by which gradually the land of Ireland
 
 General Politics 113 
 
 may be, to a considerable extent, transferred from 
 foreign, or alien, or absentee Protestant proprietors, to the 
 hands of the Catholic resident population of the country. 
 I anticipate that until something of this kind is put into 
 process of operation, we shall not find such tranquillity 
 and content in Ireland as we would wish to see. But 
 in speaking of the Irish land question, I may say one 
 word about the land question in the United Kingdom. 
 Perhaps many of you are not aware that from year to 
 year, from ten years to ten years, the owners of land in 
 the United Kingdom are becoming a smaller and 
 smaller number of persons ; that the laws which we 
 have in this country, having been based and supported 
 by the territorial powers, are laws whose express 
 object it is to maintain great estates in the hands of 
 great families, and to make the land not of Ireland 
 only, but of Great Britain, a monopoly in the possession 
 of a few. And the purpose of all this is that these 
 great families by the possession of vast estates may 
 possess and wield great political power, and remain, as 
 they have been until now, the great governing party 
 and power within this realm. But if you look seriously 
 at facts, you will see that certain forces are constantly 
 operating which tend to the accumulation of land ; and 
 that certain other forces tend as certainly to its dis- 
 persion. Those which tend to its accumulation will 
 easily suggest themselves. Some men think it wise, 
 and certainly agreeable, to put their property into land. 
 Some people feel like Dr. Johnson, who advised a friend 
 of his to take a walk of two miles before breakfast, and 
 said, if possible, it should be upon your own land. 
 Others like investments in land because they like to 
 dabble in agriculture ; others because the investment 
 in land in this country gives a certain social influence 
 which repays them for the moderate rate of interest 
 which they receive. On the other hand, you will see 
 that there are also influences which assist the dispersion 
 of landed property. For instance, a man may wish to 
 have an investment in English land, which pays him 
 three per cent., put into American land, which will pay 
 him seven per cent. ; or he finds it expedient to get rid of a 
 
 11
 
 114 B right's Speeches 
 
 portion of his estate in order to procure capital for his 
 son ; or he may have been unfortunate in some monetary 
 speculation, and therefore may find it necessary to sell 
 land ; or that which happens to all men happens to 
 him— his life comes to an end, and then the property 
 may possibly need to be sold. Thus you will see that 
 Nature has provided certain forces which tend to the 
 accumulation of estates in land, and certain other forces 
 which tend to their dispersion ; and I maintain that 
 the true policy of the Government and of the law — the 
 just policy of the law- — is to leave all to the forces of 
 Nature, whether they induce the disposition to accumulate 
 or bring about the necessity of dispersion, to their un- 
 restrained operation. Thus when laws are made by 
 which men who wish to buy property will be able to 
 buy it, some in large and some in small quantities, the 
 monopoly which exists in this country will be brought 
 to an end. 
 
 I do not propose that there should be any law by 
 which estates should forcibly be cut up and divided 
 among families. I would leave the owner, the man in 
 possession of the estate, perfect freedom to decide 
 whether he will leave the property to one, or divide it 
 among the whole of his children. The law of division 
 maintained in France and in many countries of Europe 
 is believed by most people in those countries to be a 
 good law ; but it appears to me to be contrary to the 
 principles of political economy, and I prefer the opera- 
 tion of the law as it exists in the United States of 
 America, which rejects the law of France and rejects also 
 our law. But I conceive that before long it will be the 
 duty of the people of England, of the electors of England, 
 and of Parliament to remove from the Statute-book what 
 is called the law of primogeniture, to allow land where it 
 is left by a person who makes no will to be justly and 
 equally divided by the law as property other than land 
 is now divided, and that the present practice of entails and 
 settlements should be limited to persons who are living 
 when the deeds are made. I believe that it is not a 
 wise thing to sacrifice the public interests to family 
 pride or to the notion that you must build up great
 
 General Politics 115 
 
 families who are to have great resources, only that they 
 may exercise a paramount authority in a free country. 
 
 There is another question which has been discussed 
 a good deal of late, which at least twice a year to some 
 people, and every day to most people, is of some 
 interest. This is the question of Government expendi- 
 ture. The people of the United Kingdom have carried 
 the burden of heavy chains so long, that they have become 
 used to them, and almost seem to think that the chains 
 are part of their natural limbs. We are paying now, 
 this very year, taxes amounting to 70,000,000/. sterling. 
 I wish I could show you what 70,000,000 or even what 
 1,000,000 means; but I have never found a man who 
 could comprehend the meaning of a million. Out of 
 these 70,000,000/., 26,000,000/. go to pay the interest on 
 the debt contracted by wars which have been waged by 
 this country between the time of William III and the 
 time of the Russian War. These wars have seldom been 
 undertaken for any purpose whatever in which the whole 
 people of this country had a real interest. Your fathers 
 having waged the wars, spilled the blood and spent the 
 treasure ; it comes on us, their children, and on our 
 children and their children, to pay the interest for an 
 enormous debt. But we are not content with this 
 burden. We have learnt so little by the past, that we 
 are paying this year, I think, rather more than an equal 
 sum, rather more than 26,000,000/. from the fear that 
 there may be another war, or that we may be induced 
 again to meddle in some great European contest. We 
 are maintaining an army and a navy at a cost far greater 
 than at any previous period in time past, although we 
 have confessedly — I quote the words of Lord Stanley, 
 the Foreign Minister — a sufficient guarantee that we 
 have altogether abandoned the ancient theory of the 
 balance of power, and that we do not intend henceforth 
 to use the sword in any question in which the honour 
 and interest of England are not distinctly involved. 
 
 This year, I think, the army cost about 15,000,000/., 
 and the navy over 11,000,000/. Let me tell you how 
 many there are of every kind of soldier and half-soldier 
 in the country. If I am not mistaken, there were voted 
 
 h 2
 
 u6 Bright's Speeches 
 
 [40,000 men for the army, for the navy 60,000, making 
 200,000 regular and permanent troops, which we have 
 been told are absolutely necessary, so necessary that 
 the Government that preceded this present Government 
 were most negligent of the defences of the country in 
 maintaining less. Of the militia there are 128,000 men, 
 of the Volunteers 162,000. In Ireland there is a police 
 force, equal in training and armament to any troops, of, 
 I believe, rather more than 12,000 men. Then there is, 
 as you know, a considerable force of police in all our 
 great towns, and in nearly all the counties. Take them 
 altogether, they make a very formidable sum. These 
 persons are withdrawn from industry to what is supposed 
 to be necessary defence, and you need not wonder that 
 the sum which we pay is as large as that which I have 
 described, to say nothing of the loss to industry. Let 
 me further illustrate what I am saying by calling your 
 attention to Ireland. There have been at times, and 
 certainly not long ago, 30,000 soldiers in Ireland. I do 
 not know how many there are at this moment, but if 
 they are not there they are somewhere else, and I dare 
 say somewhere where they are not wanted. But we 
 have in Ireland, besides the 12,000 armed police which 
 I have mentioned, an army which is paid for out of the 
 taxes of the United Kingdom. The system of the 
 Government of Ireland, of which the Tory party is 
 enamoured, is one which requires this great military 
 force in order to keep Ireland contented, or if it fails in 
 that, to keep it from the constant exhibition of rebellious 
 tendencies. If I were one of the Conservative party — 
 I use the term as it is used in the Tory newspapers — if 
 I were one of that party I really should be ashamed to 
 talk of Ireland : I should feel that if there be a spot on 
 the earth's surface where my principles have had full 
 play, it is in that unhappy country. The territorial 
 magnates have had all the power there, an Established 
 Church has been supported by all the authority of 
 Great Britain ; the magistrates in the country, in great 
 majority, have been of the Protestant persuasion ; every- 
 thing has been upheld there which the most resolute 
 Tory could desire to see. But with what result ?
 
 General Politics 117 
 
 That policy has been followed, as it must be every- 
 where and inexorably, by widespread discontent, and a 
 resolution on the part of the people that they will shake 
 themselves free from such a Government if at any time 
 the power of Great Britain is not strong enough to 
 control them. 
 
 And now let us look at the facts in a reasonable 
 manner. What does the 26,000,000/. spent on the 
 army and navy mean ? It means something equal to 
 the debt of 800,000,000/. sterling which our forefathers 
 spent in folly and wrong, and the interest on which 
 your taxes pay. It means that there is virtually another 
 sum of 800,000,000/., the interest of which you are pay- 
 ing in taxes in order to keep up a great army and a 
 great navy. And when ? not only in a time of profound 
 peace, but when no country in the world menaces or 
 distrusts us ; when there is not a cloud in the sky ; 
 when, if ever there was a time at which the United 
 Kingdom may be said to be in tranquillity and peace, 
 the time at which I am speaking is that time. If 
 you look back over the history of England from the 
 time of the Revolution — from the time of William III 
 to the end of the Russian War — you will find that almost 
 every war in which we have been engaged was based on 
 the utter folly and absurdity that this nation is called 
 upon to maintain the balance of power in Europe. I 
 hope that we have abandoned that policy and given 
 up that delusion ; that we have got free from that 
 aberration, and are at last in our right mind. May we 
 not, then, calculate that if we keep out of the former 
 hallucination, if we retain that sound mind, if we for 
 the next 50 years, or 100 years, resolve to maintain our 
 present policy of not meddling in the affairs of Europe, 
 that we shall be at least as free from wars in 100 years 
 to come as we might have been in the 100 years that 
 are passed. If that be so, if there be any hope of it, — and 
 I believe there is, — I ask why we should go on paying 
 26,000,000/. sterling a year for the cost of an army and 
 a navy ? 
 
 I quoted a passage yesterday from perhaps the foremost 
 name in English political history — from John Milton — I
 
 118 Bright's Speeches 
 
 may now quote another. He describes these charges 
 for war as draining the veins of the body to supply ulcers; 
 and so from your veins, from the sweat of your brows, 
 from the skill of your brains, and the industry of your 
 hands, from that which you have worked for to furnish 
 your houses, to clothe your families, to supply their 
 wants — from all these this 26,000,000/. is gathered up, 
 not once in 100 years, but every year, to support the 
 army and navy, to maintain and keep up a policy which 
 we have utterly abandoned. If you read the papers, 
 which tell us nearly everything — I find they sometimes 
 tell us things that do not happen — you will find they say 
 something about the West Indian and North American 
 fleet ; something about the Pacific squadron ; and some- 
 thing about the naval force of Her Majesty in the China 
 seas ; something which has happened to ships of war on 
 the coast of India, or at the Cape. Then you hear of 
 Lord Clarence Paget, as here, or there, in some part 
 of the Mediterranean, with a prodigious fleet. You 
 hear, further, that there is always a great Channel fleet 
 which is necessary for our home protection. But there 
 is no necessity whatever for these fleets on our coast, or 
 for traversing every ocean as they do now. There is 
 no other country that finds it needful to have great 
 fleets and squadrons everywhere. I do not know whether 
 it is a dream, or a vision, or the foresight of a future 
 reality that sometimes passes across my mind — I like 
 to dwell upon it — but I frequently think the time 
 may come when the maritime nations of Europe — this 
 renowned country, of which we are citizens, France, 
 Prussia, Russia, resuscitated Spain, Italy, and the 
 United States of America — may see that those vast 
 fleets are of no use ; that they are merely menaces 
 offered from one country to another ; that they are 
 grand inventions by which the blood is withdrawn from 
 the veins of the people to feed their ulcers ; and that they 
 may come to this wise conclusion, — they will combine at 
 their joint expense, and under some joint management, 
 to supply the sea with a sufficient sailing and armed 
 police, which may be necessary to keep the peace on all 
 parts of the watery surface of the globe, and that those
 
 General Politics 119 
 
 great instruments of war and oppression shall no longer 
 be upheld. This, of course, by many will be thought 
 to be a dream or a vision, not the foresight of what 
 they call a statesman. Still, I have faith that it will 
 not be for ever that we shall read of what Wilberforce 
 called the noxious race of heroes and conquerors ; that 
 what Christianity points to will one day be achieved, 
 and that the nations throughout the world will live in 
 peace with each other. How much can we spare of 
 that 26,000,000/. ? I think one-half of it was considered 
 enough thirty years ago when the Duke of Wellington 
 and Sir Robert Peel were in power. Heavy taxation 
 always is unequal, for when the burden is heavy the 
 powerful classes are always endeavouring to shift it 
 from their own shoulders on to those of somebody that 
 is weaker. It is impossible to say how great would be 
 the gain to the commerce and manufactures, to the 
 shopkeeping and distributing interests, to artisans and 
 labourers throughout the country if one-half of these 
 26,000,000/. could be saved. There is not a man or a 
 woman in England that would not reap some advantage 
 from such a change. If this wide extension of the 
 suffrage does not bring the people to consider these 
 questions, and cause them to urge in Parliament greater 
 wisdom and greater economy, I shall be greatly dissatis- 
 fied with its results. 
 
 In the address which was given to me a reference 
 was made to another question, not less important than 
 any of those I have mentioned. That is, the question 
 of education. I presume that in Scotland, where you 
 have had more education than we have had in England, 
 you are in favour of having more still ; for education is 
 one of those things of which the more extensively it is 
 spread among the people, the more a people demand. 
 In England we are superior to other nations in some 
 things : we have great personal freedom ; we have a 
 press that can write almost anything it likes ; we have 
 a platform on which men may speak freely ; we have 
 great success in manufactures ; we have immense 
 superiority over almost all countries ; but it is singular 
 that in the education of the people, of the working
 
 120 Bright's Speeches 
 
 classes, of those who live by wages, we are much behind 
 very many of the civilized and Christian nations of the 
 world. We have any number of churches and colleges, 
 but we have a great scarcity of schools. I sometimes 
 compare the state of things in New England with the 
 state of things in Old England. New England began 
 to be colonized about 250 years ago : the very first 
 colonists who landed on its shores established at once 
 a system of education. From that day to this that 
 system has not only constantly flourished, but it has 
 been constantly extended and gathered strength, and 
 now the population of New England is descended from 
 no less than eight generations of skilled and intelligent 
 men and women. In this country, as we all know, un- 
 happily, there are at least some millions whose forefathers 
 for eight generations have been entirely deprived of all 
 education whatever. You may imagine — you cannot 
 imagine — the difference between two people, one 
 which has been educated for 250 years, and another 
 which has been almost entirely shut out from education. 
 Only last night, when I came to Edinburgh, I sat by a 
 lady who has not long ago returned from America. 
 She was a lady of your country. She spoke with 
 delight of what she had seen there with regard to educa- 
 tion, and with pain and sorrow at the neglect of it 
 which is shown by the population of the United 
 Kingdom. She said that nobody would think of speak- 
 ing of any class, as we speak, as being partially, or 
 large portions of them as entirely, uneducated. There 
 is a possibility — and we shall find it out, our children 
 will see it, I hope — that the millions of this country 
 who have not been educated — for you can see the fact 
 in the countenances and lives of many — will hereafter 
 have, if not a large, at least a reasonable and necessary 
 culture. I frequently used an argument in favour of 
 a wider suffrage to the following effect : — I said that this 
 great neglect was the fruit of the government of the 
 country by a small section or class ; that if we were to 
 transfer the power from the small section and extend it 
 over the nation, the instincts and sympathies of the 
 nation would at once demand that a wide and thorough
 
 General Politics 121 
 
 system of, at least, elementary education should be 
 speedily extended to every part of the country. I have 
 dwelt on three great topics. I had no notion that the 
 mere passage of a Suffrage Bill would content every- 
 body ; for, after all, there is not much difference in 
 holding up your hands at the hustings and going in to 
 have your name put down on the poll-book unless 
 something is to follow. That something, I hope, we 
 shall all consider carefully and wisely, and that in all 
 our future proceedings we shall bear in mind that upon 
 every one of us, as electors, there is a great and solemn 
 responsibility. The three great questions before us are 
 these : — The monopoly of the land, which I believe to be 
 the cause of great and serious evil. It drives vast 
 numbers of the rural population into the towns, where 
 sometimes they are not wanted. It subjects the rural 
 population over wide districts of territory to the rule of 
 one man, as you know ; and it keeps the rural popula- 
 lation back in the condition — I speak of the labourers — 
 which they were in for a hundred years ago or more. 
 Rents have risen, the incomes of the landed proprietors 
 doubled, trebled, and quadrupled — aye, in some cases, 
 increased tenfold. What the labourers were at one 
 time they remain, not altogether, but very much the 
 same as they were. Let us protest against the monopoly 
 of the land. I hope that we shall have the united voice 
 of all the free constituencies in the country before long 
 demanding of Parliament that there shall be such a 
 change made as brings the truths of political economy 
 and the law of justice within reach of all. 
 
 Next, there is an enormous expenditure, and in some 
 things onerous inequality of taxation. I had this 
 morning the opportunity of meeting the members of the 
 Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, and I took occasion 
 to tell them how great a credit it was to them that so 
 far back as the year 1820 they had presented an 
 admirable petition to Parliament in favour of the 
 principle of free trade, and I suggested to them that 
 they might find it to be their duty to endeavour to get 
 what I call a free breakfast-table — to get rid of the 
 heavy duties upon tea, coffee, and sugar. The expendi-
 
 122 Bright's Speeches 
 
 ture of the country might easily be reduced so much as 
 to allow a reduction or repeal of these duties. The 
 equalization of certain other duties— I refer to the 
 legacy and succession duties — might go a considerable 
 way towards the means for extinguishing these duties. 
 You may rely upon it, that if the people say that these 
 taxes are unnecessary and unjust, and if the people 
 protest against them, and resolve to get rid of them, 
 you will not find the slightest difficulty in finding a 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer who will do the work. 
 
 The last of the three questions is the existence of 
 ignorance, of almost hopeless ignorance, among the 
 poorest classes of the people. It is not an extraordinary 
 thing that notwithstanding our great industry, our 
 wonderful machinery, our world-wide commerce, and 
 the great wealth of the country, there should be found 
 so large a mass of pauperism in the kingdom. I read 
 the other day a speech made by a member of the House 
 of Commons, and a member of the present Government, 
 or who was until the last Session. The Secretary of 
 the Poor Law Board expressed his apprehension that 
 the pauperism of the country was increasing so fast 
 that it would be nearly as bad as it was some thirty 
 years ago. I think there must be something very 
 rotten if such a result occurs. Since I have taken a 
 part in public affairs, the fact of the vast weight of the 
 poverty and ignorance that exists at the bottom of the 
 social scale has been a burden on my mind, and is so 
 now. I have always hoped that the policy which I 
 have advocated, and has been accepted in principle, 
 will tend gradually but greatly to relieve the pauperism 
 and the suffering which we still see among the working 
 classes of society. I have no notion of a country being 
 called prosperous and happy, or of being in a satisfactory 
 state, when such a state of things exists. You may 
 have an historical monarchy decked out in the dazzling 
 splendour of Royalty ; you may have an ancient nobility 
 settled in grand mansions and on great estates ; you 
 may have an ecclesiastical hierarchy, hiding with its 
 worldly pomp that religion whose first virtue is humility ; 
 but, notwithstanding all this, the whole fabric may be
 
 General Politics 123 
 
 rotten and doomed ultimately to fall, if the great mass 
 of the people on whom it is supported is poor, and 
 suffering, and degraded. 
 
 Is there no remedy for this state of things ? If 
 Government were just, if taxes were moderate and 
 equitably imposed, if land were free, if schools were as 
 prominent institutions in our landscapes and in our 
 great towns as prisons and workhouses are, I suspect 
 that we should find the people gradually gaining more 
 self-respect ; that they would have much more hope of 
 improvement for themselves and their families, that 
 they would rise above, in thousands of cases, all tempta- 
 tions to intemperance, and that they would become 
 generally — I say almost universally — more virtuous 
 and more like what the subjects of a free State ought to 
 be. The .solemn question as to the future condition of 
 a considerable portion of the labouring classes in this 
 country cannot be neglected. It must be known and 
 remedied. It is the work upon which the new electoral 
 body and the new Parliament will have to enter. It is 
 a long way from Belgrave Square to Bethnal Green. It 
 is not pleasant to contrast the palatial mansions of the 
 rich and the dismal hovels of the poor, the profuse and 
 costly luxuries of the wealthy with the squalid and 
 hopeless misery of some millions of those who are 
 below them. But I ask you, as I ask myself a thousand 
 times, is it not possible that this mass of poverty and 
 suffering may be reached and be raised, or taught to raise 
 itself ? What is there that man cannot do if he tries ? 
 The other day he descended to the mysterious depths of 
 the ocean, and with an iron hand sought, and found, 
 and grasped, and brought up to the surface the lost 
 cable, and with it made two worlds into one. I ask, 
 are his conquests confined to the realms of science ? Is 
 it not possible that another hand, not of iron, but of 
 Christian justice and kindness, may be let down to 
 moral depths even deeper than the cable fathoms, to 
 raise up from thence the sons and daughters of misery 
 and the multitude who are ready to perish ? This is 
 the great problem which is now before us. It is one 
 which is not for statesmen only, not for preachers of
 
 124 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the Gospel only — it is one which every man in the 
 nation should attempt to solve. The nation is now in 
 power, and if wisdom abide with power, the generation 
 to follow may behold the glorious day of what we, in 
 our time, with our best endeavours, can only hope to 
 see the earliest dawn. 
 
 X 
 
 RUSSIAN WAR— I. : THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE 
 
 (from hansard) 
 
 [Mr. Bright was opposed to the war with Russia. This speech 
 was spoken on the day when the message from the Crown 
 announcing the declaration of war was brought down to the 
 House.] 
 
 House of Commons, March 31, 1854. 
 
 There are two reasons which may induce a Member of 
 this House to address it — he may hope to convince 
 some of those to whom he speaks, or he may wish to 
 clear himself from any participation in a course which 
 he believes to be evil. I presume I am one of that 
 small section of the House to whom the hon. Gentleman 
 who has just spoken (Mr. Layard) has referred, when he 
 alluded to the small party who objected to the policy by 
 which this country has arrived at the " triumphant 
 position which it now occupies." In coming forward to 
 speak on this occasion, I may be told that I am like a 
 physician proposing to prescribe to-day for a man who 
 died yesterday, and that it is of no use to insist upon 
 views which the Government and the House have 
 already determined to reject. I feel, however, that we 
 are entering upon a policy which may affect the 
 fortunes of this country for a long time to come, and I 
 am unwilling to lose this opportunity of explaining 
 wherein I differ from the course which the Government 
 has pursued, and of clearing myself from any portion of 
 the responsibility which attaches to those who support 
 the policy which the Government has adopted.
 
 Russian War 125 
 
 We are asked to give our confidence to the Adminis- 
 tration in voting the Address to the Crown, which has 
 been moved by the noble Lord the Member fot London, 
 and to pledge our support to them in the war in which 
 the country is now to engage. The right hon. Gentle- 
 man, the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), 
 on a recent occasion, made use of a term which differed 
 considerably from what he said in a former debate ; he 
 spoke of this war as a " just and unnecessary war." I 
 shall not discuss the justice of the war. It may be 
 difficult to decide a point like this, seeing that every 
 war undertaken since the days of Nimrod has been 
 declared to be just by those in favour of it ; but I may 
 at least question whether any war that is unnecessary 
 can be deemed to be just. I shall not discuss this 
 question on the abstract principle of peace at any 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 which are accepted by all the 
 Members of this House. I shall maintain that when 
 we are deliberating on the question of war, and endeav- 
 ouring 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 under- 
 taken are probable, or, at least, possible of attainment ; 
 and, further, that the end proposed to be accomplished 
 is worth the cost and the sacrifices which we are about 
 to incur. I think these are fair principles on which to 
 discuss the question, and I hope that when the noble 
 Lord the Member for Tiverton (Lord Palmerston) rises 
 during this debate, he will not assume that I have 
 dealt with it on any other principles than these. 
 
 The House should bear in mind that at this moment 
 we are in intimate alliance with a neighbouring 
 Government, which was, at a recent period, the 
 originator of the troubles which have arisen at Constan- 
 tinople. I do not wish to blame the French Govern- 
 ment, because nothing could have been more proper 
 than the manner in which it has retired from the 
 difficulty it had created ; but it is nevertheless quite
 
 126 Bright's Speeches 
 
 true that France, having made certain demands upon 
 Turkey with regard to concessions to the Latin Church, 
 backed by a threat of the appearance of a French fleet 
 in the Dardanelles, which demands Turkey had wholly 
 or partially complied with ; Russia, the powerful 
 neighbour of Turkey, being on the watch, made certain 
 other demands, having reference to the Greek Church ; 
 and Russia at the same time required (and this I under- 
 stand to be the real ground of the quarrel) that Turkey 
 should define by treaty, or convention, or by a simple 
 note, or memorandum, what was conceded, and what 
 were the rights of Russia, in order that the Government 
 of Russia might not suffer in future from the varying 
 policy and the vacillation of the Ottoman Government. 
 Now, it seems to me quite impossible to discuss this 
 question without considering the actual condition of 
 Turkey. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) 
 assumes that they who do not agree in the policy he 
 advocates are necessarily hostile to the Turks, and have 
 no sympathy for Turkey. I repudiate such an 
 assumption altogether. I can feel for a country like 
 that, if it be insulted or oppressed by a powerful 
 neighbour ; but all that sympathy may exist without 
 my being able to convince myself that it is the duty of 
 this country to enter into the serious obligation of a war 
 in defence of the rights of that country. The noble 
 Lord the Member for Tiverton is one of the very few 
 men in this House, or out of it, who are bold enough to 
 insist upon it that there is a growing strength in the 
 Turkish Empire. There was a Gentleman in this 
 House, sixty years ago, who, in the debates in 1791, 
 expressed the singular opinion which the noble Lord 
 now holds. There was a Mr. Stanley in the House at 
 that period, who insisted on the growing power of 
 Turkey, and asserted that the Turks of that day " were 
 more and more imitating our manners, and emerging 
 from their inactivity and indolence ; that improvements 
 of every kind were being introduced among them, and 
 that even printing presses had been lately established in 
 their capital." That was the opinion of a Gentleman 
 anxious to defend Turkey, and speaking in this House
 
 Russian War 127 
 
 more than sixty years ago ; we are now living sixty 
 years later, and no one now, but the noble Lord, seems 
 to insist upon the fact of the great and growing power 
 of the Turkish Empire. 
 
 If any one thing is more apparent than another, on 
 the face of all the documents furnished to the House 
 by the Government of which the noble Lord is a 
 Member, it is this, that the Turkish Empire is falling, 
 or has fallen, into a state of decay, and into anarchy so 
 permanent as to have assumed a chronic character. 
 The noble Lord surely has not forgotten that Turkey 
 has lost the Crimea and Bessarabia, and its control over 
 the Danubian Principalities ; that the Kingdom of 
 Greece has been carved out of it ; that it has lost its 
 authority over Algiers, and has run great risk of being 
 conquered by its own vassal the Pasha of Egypt ; and 
 from this he might have drawn the conclusion that the 
 empire was gradually falling into decay, and that to 
 pledge ourselves to effect its recovery and sustentation, 
 is to undertake what no human power will be able to 
 accomplish. I only ask the house to turn to the state- 
 ments which will be found nearly at the end of the first 
 Blue Books recently placed on the table of the House, 
 and they will find that there is scarcely any calamity 
 which can be described as afflicting any country, which 
 is not there proved to be present, and actively at work, 
 in almost every province of the Turkish Empire. And 
 the House should bear in mind, when reading these 
 despatches from the English Consuls in Turkey to the 
 English Ambassador at Constantinople, that they give 
 a very faint picture of what really exists, because what 
 are submitted to us are but extracts of more extended 
 and important communications. It may fairly be 
 assumed that the parts which are not published are 
 those which describe the state of things to be so bad, 
 that the Government has been unwilling to lay before 
 the House, and the country, and the world, that which 
 would be so offensive and so injurious to its ally the 
 Sultan of Turkey. 
 
 But, if other evidence be wanting, is it not a fact 
 that Constantinople is the seat of intrigues and factions
 
 128 Bright's Speeches 
 
 to a degree not known in any other country or capital in 
 the world ? France demands one thing, Russia another, 
 England a third, and Austria something else. For 
 many years past our Ambassador at Constantinople has 
 been partly carrying on the government of that country, 
 and influencing its policy, and it is the city in which are 
 fought the diplomatic contests of the Great Powers of 
 Europe. And if I have accurately described the state of 
 Turkey, what is the position of Russia ? It is a power- 
 ful country, under a strong Executive Government ; it 
 is adjacent to a weak and falling nation ; it has in its 
 history the evidences of a succession of triumphs over 
 Turkey ; it has religious affinities with a majority of the 
 population of European Turkey which make it abso- 
 lutely impossible that its Government should not, more 
 or less, interfere, or have a strong interest, in the internal 
 policy of the Ottoman Empire. Now, if we were 
 Russian — and I put the case to the Members of this 
 House— is it not likely, according to all the theories I 
 have heard explained when we have been concerned in 
 similar cases, that a large majority of the House and 
 the country would be strongly in favour of such inter- 
 vention as Russia has attempted ? and if I opposed it, as 
 I certainly should oppose it, I should be in a minority on 
 that question more insignificant than that in which I 
 have now the misfortune to find myself with regard to 
 the policy of the Government on the grave question 
 now before us. 
 
 The noble Lord the Member for London has made a 
 statement of the case of the Government, and in favour 
 of this Address to the Crown ; but I thought it was a 
 statement remarkably feeble in fact and in argument, if 
 intended as a justification of the course he and his 
 Colleagues have taken. For the purposes of the 
 noble Lord's defence, the Russian demand upon Turkey 
 is assumed to be something of far greater importance 
 than I have been able to discover it to be from a careful 
 examination of the terms in which it was couched. 
 The noble Lord himself, in one of his despatches, 
 admits that Russia had reason to complain, and that 
 she has certain rights and duties by treaty, and by
 
 Russian War 129 
 
 tradition, with regard to the protection of the Christians 
 in Turkey. Russia asserted these rights, and wished to 
 have them defined in a particular form ; and it was on 
 the question of the form of the demand, and the manner 
 in which it should be conceded, that the whole of this 
 unfortunate difference has arisen. Now, if Russia made 
 certain demands on Turkey, this country insisted that 
 Turkey should not consent to them ; for although the 
 noble Lord has attempted to show that Turkey herself, 
 acting for herself, had resolved to resist, I defy anyone 
 to read the despatches of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe 
 without coming to the conclusion that, from the 
 beginning to the end of the negotiations, the English 
 Ambassador had insisted, in the strongest manner, that 
 Turkey should refuse to make the slightest concession 
 on the real point at issue in the demands of the Russian 
 Government. As a proof of that statement I may refer 
 to the account given by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in 
 his despatch of the 5th of May, 1853, of the private 
 interview he had with the Sultan, the Minister of the 
 Sultan having left him at the door, that the interview 
 might be strictly private. In describing that interview, 
 Lord Stratford says, " I then endeavoured to give him 
 a just idea of the degree of danger to which his Empire 
 was exposed." The Sultan was not sufficiently aware 
 of his danger, and the English Ambassador " endeav- 
 oured to give him a just idea of it"; and it was by 
 means such as this that he urged upon the Turkish 
 Government the necessity of resistance to any of the 
 demands of Russia, promising the armed assistance 
 of England, whatever consequences might ensue. 
 From the moment that promise was made, or from the 
 moment it was sanctioned by the Cabinet at home, war 
 was all but inevitable ; they had entered into a partner- 
 ship with the Turkish Government (which, indeed, could 
 scarcely be called a Government at all), to assist it by 
 military force ; and Turkey having old quarrels to 
 settle with Russia, and old wrongs to avenge, was not 
 slow to plunge into the war, having secured the co- 
 operation of two powerful nations, England and France, 
 in her quarrel. 
 
 1
 
 130 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Now, I have no special sympathy with Russia, and I 
 refuse to discuss or to decide this question on grounds 
 of sympathy with Russia or with Turkey ; I consider it 
 simply as it affects the duties and the interests of my 
 own country. I find that after the first proposition for 
 a treaty had been made by Prince Menchikoff, that 
 envoy made some concession, and asked only for a 
 Sencd, or Convention ; and when that was disapproved 
 of he offered to accept a note, or memorandum merely, 
 that should specify what should be agreed upon. But 
 the Turk was advised to resist, first the treaty, then 
 the convention, and then the note or memorandum ; 
 and an armed force was promised on behalf of this 
 country. At the same time he knew that he would 
 incur the high displeasure of England and France, and 
 especially of England, if he made the slightest concession 
 to Russia. It was about the middle of May that 
 Prince Menchikoff left Constantinople, not having 
 succeeded in obtaining any concession from the Porte ; 
 and it was on the 3rd of July that the Russian forces 
 crossed the Pruth ; thinking, I believe, by making a 
 dash at the Principalities, to coerce Turkey, and deter 
 her allies from rendering her the promised support. It 
 has been assumed by some that if England had declared 
 war last year Russia would have been deterred from 
 any further step, and that the whole matter would have 
 been settled at once. I, however, have no belief that 
 Russia on the one hand, or England and France on the 
 other, would have been bullied into any change of 
 policy by means of that kind. 
 
 I come now to the celebrated " Vienna note." I am 
 bound here to say that nobody has yet been able clearly 
 to explain the difference between the various notes 
 Turkey has been advised to reject, and this and other 
 notes she has been urged to accept. With respect to 
 this particular note, nobody seems to have understood 
 it. There were four Ambassadors at Vienna, represent- 
 ing England, France, Austria, and Prussia ; and these 
 four gentlemen drew up the Vienna note, and recom- 
 mended it to the Porte as one which she might accept 
 without injury to her independence or her honour.
 
 Russian War 131 
 
 Louis Napoleon is a man knowing the use of language, 
 and able to comprehend the meaning of a document of 
 this nature, and his Minister of Foreign Affairs is a 
 man of eminent ability ; and Louis Napoleon and his 
 Minister agree with the Ambassadors at Vienna as to 
 the character of the Vienna note. We have a Cabinet 
 composed of men of great individual capacity ; a 
 Cabinet, too, including no less than five Gentlemen 
 who have filled the office of Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, and who may, therefore, be presumed to 
 understand even the sometimes concealed meaning of 
 diplomatic phraseology. These five Foreign Secre- 
 taries, backed by the whole Cabinet, concurred with the 
 Ambassadors at Vienna, and with the Emperor of the 
 French and his Foreign Secretary, in recommending the 
 Vienna note to the Sultan as a document which he 
 might accept consistently with his honour, and with 
 that integrity and that independence which our 
 Government is so anxious to secure for him. What 
 was done with this note ? Passing by the marvellous 
 stupidity, or something worse, which caused that note 
 not to be submitted to Turkey before it was sent to 
 St. Petersburg, he would merely state that it was sent 
 to St. Petersburg, and was accepted in its integrity by 
 the Emperor of Russia in the most frank and unreserved 
 manner. We were then told — I was told by Members 
 of the Government — that the moment the note was 
 accepted by Russia we might consider the affair to 
 be settled, and that the dispute would never be heard 
 of again. When, however, the note was sent to 
 Constantinople, after its acceptance by Russia, Turkey 
 discovered, or thought, or said she discovered, that it 
 was as bad as the original or modified proposition of 
 Prince Menchikoff, and she refused the note as it was, 
 and proposed certain modifications. And what are we 
 to think of these arbitrators or mediators — the four 
 Ambassadors at Vienna, and the Governments of 
 France and England — who, after discussing the matter 
 in three different cities, and at three distinct and different 
 periods, and after agreeing that the proposition was one 
 which Turkey could assent to without detriment to her 
 
 1 2
 
 132 Bright's Speeches 
 
 honour and independence, immediately afterwards 
 turned round, and declared that the note was one 
 which Turkey could not be asked to accede to, and 
 repudiated in the most formal and express manner that 
 which they themselves had drawn up, and which, only a 
 few days before, they had approved of as a combination of 
 wisdom and diplomatic dexterity which had never been 
 excelled ? 
 
 But it was said that the interpretation which Count 
 Nesselrode placed upon this note made it impossible for 
 Turkey to accede to it. I very much doubt whether 
 Count Nesselrode placed any meaning upon it which it 
 did not fairly warrant, and it is impossible to say 
 whether he really differed at all from the actual 
 intentions of the four Ambassadors at Vienna. But I 
 can easily understand the course taken by the Russian 
 Minister. It was this : — seeing the note was rejected by 
 the Turk, and considering that its previous acceptance 
 by Russia was some concession from the original 
 demand, he issued a circular, giving such an explanation 
 or interpretation of the Vienna note as might enable 
 him to get back to his original position, and might save 
 Russia from being committed and damaged by the 
 concession, which, for the sake of peace, she had made. 
 This circular, however, could make no real difference 
 in the note itself ; and notwithstanding this circular, 
 whatever the note really meant, it would have been 
 just as binding upon Russia as any other note will be 
 that may be drawn up and agreed to at the end of the 
 war. Although, however, this note was considered 
 inadmissible, negotiations were continued ; and at the 
 Conference at Olmutz, at which the Earl of Westmore- 
 land was present, the Emperor of Russia himself 
 expressed his willingness to accept the Vienna note — 
 not in the sense that Count Nesselrode had placed upon 
 it, but in that which the Ambassadors at Vienna 
 declared to be its real meaning, and with such a clause 
 as they should attach to it, defining its real meaning. 
 
 It is impossible from this fairly to doubt the sincerity 
 of the desire for peace manifested by the Emperor of 
 Russia. He would accept the note prepared by the
 
 Russian War 133 
 
 Conference at Vienna, sanctioned by the Cabinets in 
 London and Paris, and according to the interpretation 
 put upon it by those by whom it had been prepared — 
 such interpretation to be defined in a clause, to be by them 
 attached to the original note. But in the precise week 
 in which these negotiations were proceeding apparently 
 to a favourable conclusion, the Turkish Council, 
 consisting of a large number of dignitaries of the 
 Turkish Empire — not one of whom, however, represented 
 the Christian majority of the population of Turkey, but 
 inspired by the fanaticism and desperation of the old 
 Mahomedan party — assembled ; and, fearful that peace 
 would be established, and that they would lose the great 
 opportunity of dragging England and France into a war 
 with their ancient enemy the Emperor of Russia, they 
 came to a sudden resolution in favour of war ; and in 
 the very week in which Russia agreed to the Vienna 
 note in the sense of the Vienna Conference, the Turks 
 declared war against Russia, — the Turkish forces 
 crossed the Danube, and began the war, involving 
 England in an inglorious and costly struggle, from 
 which this Government and a succeeding Government 
 may fail to extricate us. 
 
 I differ very much from those Gentlemen who 
 condemn the Government for the tardy nature of their 
 proceedings. I never said or thought that the Govern- 
 ment was not honestly anxious for peace ; but I 
 believe, and indeed I know, that at an early period they 
 committed themselves and the country to a policy 
 which left the issue of peace or war in other 
 hands than their own — namely, in the hands of the 
 Turks, the very last hands in which I am willing to 
 trust the interests and the future of this country. In 
 my opinion the original blunder was committed when 
 the Turks were advised to resist and not to concede ; 
 and the second blunder was made when the Turks were 
 supported in their rejection of the Vienna note ; for the 
 moment the four Powers admitted that their recommen- 
 dation was not necessarily to be accepted by the Porte, 
 they put themselves entirely into the hands of the Turk, 
 and might be dragged into any depth of confusion and
 
 134 Bright's Speeches 
 
 war in which that respectable individual might wish to 
 involve them. 
 
 The course taken by Turkey in beginning the war 
 was against the strong advice of the allies ; but, 
 notwithstanding this, the moment the step was taken 
 they turned round again, as in the case of the Vienna 
 note, and justified and defended her in the course she 
 had adopted, in defiance of the remonstrances they had 
 urged against it. In his speech to-night the noble 
 Lord (Lord J. Russell) has occupied some time in 
 showing that Turkey was fully justified in declaring 
 war. I should say nothing against that view if Turkey 
 were fighting on her own resources ; but I maintain 
 that, if she is in alliance with England and France, the 
 opinions of those Powers should at least have been 
 heard, and that, in case of her refusal to listen to their 
 counsel, they would have been justified in saying to 
 her, "If you persist in taking your own course, we 
 cannot be involved in the difficulties to which it may 
 give rise, but must leave you to take the consequences 
 of your own acts." But this was not said, and the 
 result is, that we are dragged into a war by the madness 
 of the Turk, which, but for the fatal blunders we have 
 committed, we might have avoided. 
 
 There have been three plans for dealing with this 
 Turkish question, advocated by as many parties in this 
 country. The first finds favour with two or three 
 Gentlemen who usually sit on the bench below me — with 
 a considerable number out of doors — and with a portion 
 of the public press. These persons were anxious to 
 have gone to war during last summer. They seem 
 actuated by a frantic and bitter hostility to Russia, and, 
 without considering the calamities in which they might 
 involve this country, they have sought to urge it into a 
 great war, as they imagined, on behalf of European 
 freedom, and in order to cripple the resources of Russia. 
 I need hardly say that I have not a particle of 
 sympathy with that party, or with that policy. I 
 think nothing can be more unwise than that party, and 
 nothing more atrocious than their policy. But there 
 was another course recommended, and which the
 
 Russian War 135 
 
 Government has followed. War delayed, but still 
 certain — arrangements made which placed the issue of 
 war in other hands than in those of the Government of 
 this country — that is the policy which the Government 
 has pursued, and in my opinion it is fatal to Turkey and 
 disastrous to England. There is a third course, and 
 which I should have, and indeed have all along 
 recommended — that war should have been avoided by 
 the acceptance on the part of Turkey either of the last 
 note of Prince Menchikoff, or of the Vienna note ; or, if 
 Turkey would not consent to either, that then she 
 should have been allowed to enter into the war alone, 
 and England and France — -supposing they had taken, 
 and continued to take, the same view of the interests of 
 Western Europe which they have hitherto taken — 
 might have stood aloof until the time when there 
 appeared some evident danger of the war being settled 
 on terms destructive of the balance of power ; and then 
 they might have come in, and have insisted on a 
 different settlement. I would either have allowed or 
 compelled Turkey to yield, or would have insisted on 
 her carrying on the war alone. 
 
 The question is, whether the advantages both to 
 Turkey and England of avoiding war altogether, would 
 have been less than those which are likely to arise from 
 the policy which the Government has pursued ? Now, 
 if the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton is right in 
 saying that Turkey is a growing Power, and that she 
 has elements of strength which unlearned persons 
 like myself know nothing about ; surely no immediate, 
 or sensible, or permanent mischief could have arisen to 
 her from the acceptance of the Vienna note, which all 
 the distinguished persons who agreed to it have 
 declared to be perfectly consistent with her honour and 
 independence. If she has been growing stronger and 
 stronger of late years, surely she would have grown still 
 stronger in the future, and there might have been a 
 reasonable expectation that, whatever disadvantages she 
 might have suffered for a time from that note, her 
 growing strength would have enabled her to overcome 
 them, while the peace of Europe might have been
 
 136 Bright's Speeches 
 
 preserved. But suppose that Turkey is not a growing 
 Power, but that the Ottoman rule in Europe is tottering 
 to its fall, I come to the conclusion that, whatever 
 advantages were afforded to the Christian population of 
 Turkey would have enabled them to grow more rapidly 
 in numbers, in industry, in wealth, in intelligence, and 
 in political power ; and that, as they thus increased in 
 influence, they would have become more able, in case 
 any accident, which might not be far distant, occurred, 
 to supplant the Mahomedan rule, and to establish 
 themselves in Constantinople as a Christian State, 
 which, I think, every man who hears me will admit is 
 infinitely more to be desired than that the Mahomedan 
 power should be permanently sustained by the bayonets 
 of France and the fleets of England. Europe would 
 thus have been at peace ; for I do not think even the 
 most bitter enemies of Russia believe that the Emperor 
 of Russia intended last year, if the Vienna note or 
 Prince Menchikoff's last and most moderate proposition 
 had been accepted, to have marched on Constantinople. 
 Indeed, he had pledged himself in the most distinct 
 manner to withdraw his troops at once from the 
 Principalities, if the Vienna note were accepted ; and 
 therefore in that case Turkey would have been delivered 
 from the presence of the foe ; peace would for a time 
 have been secured to Europe ; and the whole matter 
 would have drifted on to its natural solution — which is, 
 that the Mahomedan power in Europe should eventually 
 succumb to the growing power of the Christian popula- 
 tion of the Turkish territories. 
 
 The noble Lord the Member for London, and his 
 colleague the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, 
 when they speak of the aggrandizement of Russia 
 relatively to the rest of Europe, always speak of the 
 " balance of power," a term which it is not easy to 
 define. It is a hackneyed term — a phrase to which it 
 is difficult to attach any definite meaning. I wish the 
 noble Lord would explain what is meant by the balance 
 of power. In 1 791, the whole Whig party repudiated the 
 proposition that Turkey had anything to do with the 
 1 alance of power. Mr. Burke, in 1791, when speaking 
 on that subject, used the following language :
 
 Russian War 137 
 
 " He had never heard it said before, that the Turkish 
 Empire was ever considered as any part of the balance 
 of power in Europe. They had nothing to do with 
 European policy ; they considered themselves as wholly 
 Asiatic. What had these worse than savages to do 
 with the Powers of Europe, but to spread war, destruc- 
 tion, and pestilence among them ? The Ministry and 
 the policy which would give these people any weight in 
 Europe, would deserve all the bans and curses of 
 posterity. All that was holy in religion, all that was 
 moral and humane, demanded an abhorrence of every- 
 thing which tended to extend the power of that cruel 
 and wasteful Empire. Any Christian Power was to 
 be preferred to these destructive savages." 
 
 Mr. Whitbread, on the same occasion, said : 
 
 " Suppose the Empress at Constantinople, and the 
 Turks expelled from the European provinces, would 
 any unprejudiced man contend that by such an event 
 mankind would not be largely benefited ? Would any 
 man contend that the expulsion of a race of beings 
 whose abominable tyranny proscribed the arts, and 
 literature, and everything that was good, and great, 
 and amiable, would not conduce to the prosperity and 
 happiness of the world ? He was convinced it would. 
 This was an event with which the paltry consideration 
 of the nice adjustment of the balance in Europe was 
 not to be put in competition, although he was a friend 
 to that balance on broad and liberal principles. He 
 abhorred the wretched policy which could entertain a 
 wish that the most luxuriant part of the earth should 
 remain desolate and miserable that a particular system 
 might be maintained." 
 
 And Mr. Fox, when speaking of Mr. Pitt's system, 
 said — and be it remembered that nobody is so great an 
 authority with the noble Lord the Member for London 
 as Mr. Fox, whose words I am now about to quote : 
 
 " His (Mr. Pitt's) defensive system was wicked and 
 absurd — that every country which appeared, from 
 whatever cause, to be growing great, should be attacked ; 
 that all the Powers of Europe should be confined to 
 the same precise situation in which this defensive
 
 138 Bright's Speeches 
 
 system found them. . . . Her (Russia's) extent of 
 territory, scanty revenue, and thin population made 
 her power by no means formidable to us — a Power 
 whom we could neither attack nor be attacked by ; and 
 this was the Power against which we were going to 
 war. Overturning the Ottoman Empire he conceived 
 to be an argument of no weight. The event was not 
 probable ; and if it should happen, it was more likely 
 to be of advantage than injurious to us." 
 
 It will probably be said, that these were opinions 
 held by Gentlemen who sat on that side of the House, 
 and who were ready to advocate any course that might 
 serve to damage the Ministers of the day. I should be 
 sorry to think so, especially of a man whose public 
 character is so much to be admired as that of Mr. Fox ; 
 but I will come to a much later period, and produce 
 authority of a very similar kind. Many hon. Members 
 now in the House recollect the late Lord Holland, and 
 they all know his sagacity and what his authority was 
 with the party with which he was connected. What 
 did he say ? Why, so late as the year 1828, when this 
 question was mooted in the House of Lords, he said : 
 
 " No, my Lords, I hope I shall never see — God 
 forbid I ever should see — for the proposition would be 
 scouted from one end of England to another — any pre- 
 parations or any attempt to defend this our ' ancient 
 ally ' from the attacks of its enemies. There was no 
 arrangement made in that treaty for preserving the 
 crumbling and hateful, or, as Mr. Burke called it, that 
 wasteful and disgusting Empire of the Turks, from 
 dismemberment and destruction ; and none of the 
 Powers who were parties to that treaty will ever, I hope, 
 save the falling Empire of Turkey from ruin." 
 
 I hope it will not be supposed that I am animated by 
 any hostility to Turkey, in quoting sentiments and 
 language such as this, for I have as much sympathy 
 with what is just towards that country as any other 
 man can have ; but the question is, not what is just to 
 Turkey, but what is just to this country, and what 
 this House, as the depositary of the power of this 
 country, has a right to do with regard to this most
 
 Russian War 139 
 
 dangerous question. I am, therefore, at liberty to quote 
 from the statesmen of 1791 and 1828, the political fathers 
 and authorities of the noble Lord the Member for 
 London, and to say, that if I hold opinions different 
 from those held by the Government, I am, at least, not 
 singular in those opinions, for I can quote great names 
 and high authorities in support of the course I am 
 taking. 
 
 This " balance of power " is in reality the hinge on 
 which the whole question turns. But if that is so 
 important as to be worth a sanguinary war, why did 
 you not go to war with France when she seized upon 
 Algiers ? That was a portion of Turkey not quite so 
 distinct, it is true, as are the Danubian Principalities; 
 but still Turkey had sovereign rights over Algiers. 
 When, therefore, France seized on a large portion of the 
 northern coast of Africa, might it not have been said 
 that such an act tended to convert the Mediterranean 
 into a French lake, — that Algiers lay next to Tunis, 
 and that, having conquered Tunis, there would remain 
 only Tripoli between France and Alexandria, and that 
 the "balance of power" was being destroyed by the 
 aggrandizement of France ? All this might have been 
 said, and the Government might easily have plunged 
 the country into war on that question. But happily the 
 Government of that day had the good sense not to 
 resist, and the result had not been disadvantageous to 
 Europe ; this country had not suffered from the seizure 
 of Algiers, and England and France had continued at 
 peace. 
 
 Take another case — the case of the United States. 
 The United States waged war with Mexico — a war with 
 a weaker State — in my opinion, an unjust and un- 
 necessary war. If I had been a citizen of the American 
 Republic, I should have condemned that war ; but 
 might it not have been as justly argued that, if we 
 allowed the aggressive attacks of the United States 
 upon Mexico, her insatiable appetite would soon be 
 turned towards the north — towards the dependencies of 
 this Empire — and that the magnificent colonies of the 
 Canadas would soon fall a prey to the assaults of their
 
 140 Bright' s Speeches 
 
 rapacious neighbour? But such arguments were not 
 used, and it was not thought necessary to, involve this 
 country in a war for the support of Mexico, although 
 the Power that was attacking that country lay adjacent 
 to our own dominions. 
 
 If this phrase of the " balance of power " is to be 
 always an argument for war, the pretence for war will 
 never be wanting, and peace can never be secure. Let 
 anyone compare the power of this country with that of 
 Austria now, and forty years ago. Will anyone say 
 that England, compared with Austria, is now three 
 times as powerful as she was thirty or forty years ago ? 
 Austria has a divided people, bankrupt finances, and 
 her credit is so low that she cannot borrow a shilling 
 out of her own territories ; England has a united people, 
 national wealth rapidly increasing, and a mechanical 
 and productive power to which that of Austria is as 
 nothing. Might not Austria complain that we have 
 disturbed the " balance of power " because we are grow- 
 ing so much stronger from better government, from the 
 greater union of our people, from the wealth that is 
 created by the hard labour and skill of our population, 
 and from the wonderful development of the mechanical 
 resources of the kingdom, which is seen on every side ? 
 If this phrase of the " balance of power," the meaning 
 of which nobody can exactly make out, is to be brought 
 in on every occasion to stimulate this country to war, 
 there is an end to all hope of permanent peace. 
 
 There is, indeed, a question of a " balance of power " 
 which this country might regard, if our statesmen had 
 a little less of those narrow views which they sometimes 
 arrogantly impute to me and to those who think with 
 me. If they could get beyond those old notions which 
 belong to the traditions of Europe, and cast their eyes as 
 far west ward as they are now looking eastward, they might 
 there see a power growing up in its gigantic proportions, 
 which will teach us before very long where the true 
 " balance of power " is to be found. This struggle may 
 indeed begin with Russia, but it may end with half the 
 States of Europe ; for Austria and Prussia are just as 
 likely to join with Russia as with England and France,
 
 Russian War 141 
 
 and probably much more so ; and we know not how 
 long alliances which now appear very secure, may 
 remain so ; for the circumstances in which the Govern- 
 ment has involved us are of the most critical character, 
 and we stand upon a mine which may explode any day. 
 Give us seven years of this infatuated struggle upon 
 which we are now entering, and let the United States 
 remain at peace during that period, and who shall say 
 what will then be the relative positions of the two 
 nations ? Have you read the Reports of your own 
 Commissioners to the New York Exhibition ? Do you 
 comprehend what is the progress of that country, as 
 exhibited in its tonnage, and exports, and imports, and 
 manufactures, and in the development of all its resources, 
 and the means of transit ? There has been nothing like 
 it hitherto under the sun. The United States may 
 profit to a large extent by the calamities which will 
 befall us ; whilst we, under the miserable and lunatic 
 idea that we are about to set the worn-out Turkish 
 Empire on its legs, and permanently to sustain it against 
 the aggressions of Russia, are entangled in a war. 
 Our trade will decay and diminish — our people, suffer- 
 ing and discontented, as in all former periods of war, will 
 emigrate in increasing numbers to a country whose 
 wise policy is to keep itself free from the entanglement 
 of European politics — to a country with which rests the 
 great question, whether England shall, for any long 
 time, retain that which she professes to value so highly 
 — her great superiority in industry and at sea. 
 
 This whole notion of the " balance of power " is a 
 mischievous delusion which has come down to us from 
 past times ; we ought to drive it from our minds, and 
 to consider the solemn question of peace or war on 
 more clear, more definite, and on far higher pinciples 
 than any that are involved in the phrase the " balance 
 of power." What is it the Government propose to do ? 
 Let us examine their policy as described in the message 
 from the Crown, and in the Address which has been 
 moved to-night. As I understand it, we are asked to 
 go to war to maintain the " integrity and independence 
 of the Ottoman Empire " — to curb the aggressive
 
 142 Bright's Speeches 
 
 power of Russia— and to defend the interests of this 
 country. 
 
 These are the three great objects to which the efforts 
 and resources of this country are to be directed. The 
 noble Lord the Member for London is, I think, the 
 author of the phrase " the integrity and independence " 
 of Turkey. If I am not mistaken, he pledged himself 
 to this more than a year ago, when he was Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs, in a letter to somebody at 
 Newcastle- on -Tyne, in answer to an Address from 
 certain enthusiasts in that town, who exhorted the 
 Government to step in for the support of the Ottoman 
 Empire. But what is the condition of that Empire at 
 this moment ? I have already described to the House 
 what it would have been if my policy had been adopted 
 — if the thrice-modified note of Prince Menchikoff had 
 been accepted, or if the Vienna note had been assented 
 to by the Porte. But what is it now under the protec- 
 tion of the noble Lord and his Colleagues ? At the 
 present moment there are no less than three foreign 
 armies on Turkish soil ; there are 100,000 Russian 
 troops in Bulgaria ; there are armies from England and 
 France approaching the Dardenelles, to entrench them- 
 selves on Turkish territory, and to return nobody knows 
 when. All this can hardly contribute to the " in- 
 dependence " of any country. But more than this : 
 there are insurrections springing up in almost every 
 Turkish province, and insurrections which must, from 
 the nature of the Turkish Government, widely extend ; 
 and it is impossible to describe the anarchy which 
 must prevail, inasmuch as the control heretofore exer- 
 cised by the Government to keep the peace is now 
 gone, by the withdrawal of its troops to the banks of 
 the Danube ; and the licence and demoralization en- 
 gendered by ages of bad government will be altogether 
 unchecked. In addition to these complicated horrors, 
 there are 200,000 men under arms ; the state of their 
 finances is already past recovery ; and the allies of 
 Turkey are making demands upon her far beyond 
 anything that was required by Russia herself. Can 
 anything be more destructive of the " integrity and
 
 Russian War 143 
 
 independence" of Turkey than the policy of the noble 
 Lord? 
 
 I have seen only this day a letter in the Times from 
 its Correspondent at Constantinople, which states that 
 Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and one of the Pashas of 
 the Porte had spent a whole night in the attempt to 
 arrange concessions which her allies had required on 
 behalf of the Christian population of Turkey. The 
 Christians are to be allowed to hold landed property ; 
 the capitation tax is to be abolished — for they are 
 actually contending for the abolition of that which the 
 hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) says is a 
 positive benefit to those upon whom it is imposed ; and 
 the evidence of Christians is to be admitted into courts of 
 justice. But the Times 1 Correspondent asks, what is the 
 use of a decree at Constantinople, which will have no effect 
 in the provinces ? — for the judges are Turks of the old 
 school, and they will have little sympathy with a change 
 under which a Christian in a court of justice is made 
 equal with his master the Turk. This Correspondent 
 describes what Turkey really wants — not three foreign 
 armies on her soil, nor any other thing which our Govern- 
 ment is about to give her, but " a pure executive, a better 
 financial administration, and sensible laws " ; and it 
 must be admitted that the true wants of the country 
 are not likely soon to be supplied. 
 
 Now, so far as regards Turkey herself, and the 
 " integrity and independence " of that Empire, I put it 
 seriously to the House — do you believe, that if the 
 Government and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had 
 advised Turkey to accept the last note of Prince Men- 
 chikoff, a note so little different from the others, offered 
 before and since, that it was impossible to discover in 
 what the distinction consisted ; or if the Government 
 had insisted on Turkey accepting, as the condition of 
 their co operation, the Vienna note, either as at first 
 proposed by the Conference, or with the explanatory 
 definitions with which the Emperor of Russia atOlmutz 
 offered to accept it, that they would have injured the 
 "integrity and independence" of Turkey? Nay, I 
 will not insult you by asking whether, under such cir-
 
 144 Bright's Speeches 
 
 cumstances, that " integrity and independence " would 
 not have been a thousand times more secure than it is 
 at this hour ? If that be true, then the " balance of 
 power " theory has been entirely overthrown by the 
 policy of the Government, for no one will argue that 
 Turkey will come out of her present difficulties more 
 able to cope with the power of Russia than she was 
 before. With her finances hopelessly exhausted, will 
 she ever again be able to raise an army of 200,000 men ? 
 But there are men, and I suspect there are statesmen, 
 in this country, and men in office, too, who believe that 
 Turkey will not be Turkey at the end of this war — 
 that she cannot come out of it an Ottoman Power — 
 that such a convulsion has been created, that while we 
 are ready to contend with half the world to support the 
 " integrity and independence " of the Ottoman Empire, 
 there will shortly be no Ottoman Empire to take the 
 benefit of the enormous sacrifices we are about to 
 make. 
 
 But we are undertaking to repress and to curb 
 Russian aggression. These are catching words ; they 
 have been amplified in newspapers, and have passed 
 from mouth to mouth, and have served to blind the 
 eyes of multitudes wholly ignorant of the details of this 
 question. If Turkey has been in danger from the side 
 of Russia heretofore, will she not be in far greater danger 
 when the war is over ? Russia is always there. You 
 do not propose to dismember Russia, or to blot out her 
 name from the map, and her history from the records of 
 Europe. Russia will be always there — always power- 
 ful, always watchful, and actuated by the same motives 
 of ambition, either of influence or of territory, which are 
 supposed to have moved her in past times. What, then, 
 do you propose to do, and how is Turkey to be secured ? 
 Will you make a treaty with Russia, and force condi- 
 tions upon her ? But if so, what security have you 
 that one treaty will be more binding than another ? It 
 is easy to find or make a reason for breaking a treaty, 
 when it is the interest of a country to break it. 
 
 I recollect reading a statement made by the illustrious 
 Washington, when it was proposed to land a French
 
 Russian War 145 
 
 army in North America, to assist the colonies in 
 overthrowing the yoke of this country. Washington 
 was afraid of them — he did not know whether these 
 allies once landed might not be as difficult to get rid of 
 as the English troops he was endeavouring to expel ; 
 for, said he, " whatever may be the convention entered 
 into, my experience teaches me that nations and 
 Governments rarely abide by conventions or treaties 
 longer than it is their interest to do so." So you may 
 make a treaty with Russia ; but if Russia is still 
 powerful and ambitious — as she certainly will be — and 
 if Turkey is exhausted and enfeebled by the war — as 
 she certainly will be — then I want to know what 
 guarantee you have, the moment the resources of 
 Russia have recovered from the utmost degree of 
 humiliation and exhaustion to which you may succeed 
 in reducing her, that she will not again insist on terms 
 with Turkey infinitely more perilous than those who 
 have ruined Turkey by urging her to refuse ? It is a 
 delusion to suppose you can dismember Russia — that 
 you can blot her from the map of Europe — that you can 
 take guarantees from her, as some seem to imagine, as 
 easily as you take bail from an offender, who would 
 otherwise go to prison for three months. England and 
 France cannot do this with a stroke of the pen, and the 
 sword will equally fail if the attempt be made. 
 
 But I come now to another point. How are the 
 interests of England involved in this question ? This 
 is, after all, the great matter which we, the representa- 
 tives of the people of England, have to consider. It is 
 not a question of sympathy with any other State. I 
 have sympathy with Turkey ; I have sympathy with 
 the serfs of Russia ; I have sympathy with the people 
 of Hungary, whose envoy the noble Lord the Member 
 for Tiverton refused to see, and the overthrow of whose 
 struggle for freedom by the armies of Russia he 
 needlessly justified in this House ; I have sympathy 
 with the Italians, subjects of Austria, Naples, and the 
 Pope ; I have sympathy with the three millions of 
 slaves in the United States ; but it is not on a question of 
 sympathy that I dare involve this country, or any 
 
 K
 
 146 Bright's Speeches 
 
 country, in a war which must cost an incalculable amount 
 of treasure and of blood. It is not my duty to make this 
 country the knight-errant of the human race/and to take 
 upon herself the protection of the thousand millions of 
 human beings who have been permitted by the Creator of 
 all things to people this planet. 
 
 I have endeavoured to look at the whole of this 
 question, and I declare, after studying the correspon- 
 dence which has been laid on the table— knowing 
 what I know of Russia and of Turkey— seeing what 
 I see of Austria and of Prussia— feeling the enormous 
 perils to which this country is now exposed, I am 
 amazed at the course which the Government has 
 pursued, and I am horrified at the results to which their 
 policy must inevitably tend. I do not say this in any 
 spirit of hostility to the Government. I have never 
 been hostile to them. I have once or twice felt it my 
 duty to speak, with some degree of sharpness, of 
 particular Members of the Administration, but I suspect 
 that in private they would admit that my censure was 
 merited. But I have never entertained a party hostility 
 to the Government. I know something of the diffi- 
 culties they have had to encounter, and I have no doubt 
 that, in taking office, they acted in as patriotic a spirit 
 as is generally expected from Members of this House. 
 So long as their course was one which I could support, 
 or even excuse, they have had my support. But this 
 is not an ordinary question ; it is not a question of 
 reforming the University of Oxford, or of abolishing 
 " ministers' money" in Ireland; the matter now before 
 us affects the character, the policy, and the vital 
 interests of the Empire; and when I think the 
 Government has committed a grievous — it may be a 
 fatal error — I am bound to tell them so. 
 
 I am told, indeed, that the war is popular, and that it 
 is foolish and eccentric to oppose it. 1 doubt if the war 
 is very popular in this House. But as to what is, or 
 has been popular, I may ask, what was more popular 
 than the American war ? There were persons lately 
 living in Manchester who had seen the recruiting
 
 Russian War 147 
 
 party going through the principal streets of that city, 
 accompanied by the parochial clergy in full canonicals, 
 exhorting the people to enlist to put down the rebels in 
 the American colonies. Where is now the popularity of 
 that disastrous and disgraceful war, and who is the man 
 to defend it ? But if hon. Members will turn to the 
 correspondence between George III and Lord North 
 on the subject of that war, they will find that the King's 
 chief argument for continuing the war was that it 
 would be dishonourable in him to make peace so long as 
 the war was popular with the people. Again, what war 
 could be more popular than the French war ? Has not 
 the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) said, not long ago, 
 in this House, that peace was rendered difficult, if not 
 impossible, by the conduct of the English press in 1803 ? 
 For myself, I do not trouble myself whether my conduct 
 in Parliament is popular or not. I care only that it 
 shall be wise and just as regards the permanent 
 interests of my country, and I despise from the 
 bottom of my heart the man who speaks a word in 
 favour of this war, or of any war which he believes 
 might have been avoided, merely because the press, 
 and a portion of the people, urge the Government to 
 enter into it. 
 
 I recollect a passage of a distinguished French 
 writer and statesman which bears strongly upon our 
 present position : he says, " The country which can 
 comprehend and act upon the lessons which God 
 has given it in the past events of its history is 
 secure in the most imminent crises of its fate." The 
 past events of our history have taught me that the 
 intervention of this country in European wars is not 
 only unnecessary, but calamitous ; that we have rarely 
 come out of such intervention having succeeded in the 
 objects we fought for ; that a debt of 800,000,000/. 
 sterling has been incurred by the policy which the noble 
 Lord approves, apparently for no other reason than that 
 it dates from the time of William III ; and that, not 
 debt alone has been incurred, but that we have left 
 Europe at least as much in chains as before a single 
 effort was made by us to rescue her from tyranny. I 
 
 k 2
 
 148 Bright's Speeches 
 
 believe, it' this country, seventy years ago, had adopted 
 the principle of non-intervention in every case where her 
 interests were not directly and obviously assailed, that 
 she would have been saved from much of the pauperism 
 and brutal crimes by which our Government and people 
 have alike been disgraced. This country might have 
 been a garden, every dwelling might have been of 
 marble, and every person who treads its soil might have 
 been sufficiently educated. We should indeed have 
 had less of military glory. We might have had neither 
 Trafalgar nor Waterloo ; but we should have set the 
 high example of a Christian nation, free in its institu- 
 tions, courteous and just in its conduct towards all 
 foreign States, and resting its policy on the unchange- 
 able foundation of Christian morality. 
 
 XI 
 
 RUSSIAN WAR— II 
 
 (from Hansard) 
 
 House of Commons, December 22, 1854. 
 
 The real question was, as every hon. Gentleman knows, 
 What was the condition of the Mahometan ? and there 
 is not a Gentleman in this House who is not aware that 
 the Mahometan portion of the population of the 
 Turkish Empire is in a decaying and dying condition, 
 and that the two great Empires which have undertaken 
 to set it on its legs again will find it about the most 
 difficult task in which they ever were engaged. What 
 do your own officers say ? Here is an extract from a 
 letter which appeared in the papers the other day : 
 
 " They ought to set these rascally Turks to mend 
 them [the roads], which might easily be done, as under 
 the clay there is plenty of capital stone. They are, I 
 am sorry to say, bringing more of these brutes into the 
 Crimea, which makes more mouths to feed, without 
 being of any use."
 
 Russian War 149 
 
 I have seen a private letter, too, from an able and 
 distinguished officer in the Crimea, who says : 
 
 " Half of us do not know what we are fighting for, 
 and the other half only pray that we may not be fighting 
 for the Turks." 
 
 The only sign of improvement which has been mani- 
 fested that I know of is, that on a great emergency, 
 when their Empire, under the advice of Her Majesty's 
 Government, and that of their Ambassador, was placed 
 in a situation of great peril, the Turks managed to 
 make an expiring effort, and to get up an army which 
 the Government, so far as I can hear, has since per- 
 mitted to be almost destroyed. 
 
 Another sign of improvement is, perhaps, that they 
 have begun to wear trowsers ; but as to their commerce, 
 their industry, or their revenue, nothing can be in a 
 worse condition. You have now two Empires attempt- 
 ing to set the Turkish Empire up again ; and it is said 
 that a third great Empire is also about to engage in the 
 task. The Turk wants to borrow money, but he cannot 
 borrow it to-day in the London market at less than from 
 eight to nine per cent. Russia, on the other hand, is an 
 Empire against which three great Empires, if Turkey 
 can be counted one still, are now combined, and it is 
 said that a fourth great Empire will soon join the ranks of 
 its enemies. But Russian funds at this moment are very 
 little lower than the stock of the London and North- 
 western Railway. You have engaged to set this 
 Turkish Empire up again — a task in which everybody 
 knows you must fail — and you have persuaded the Turk 
 to enter into a contest, one of the very first proceedings 
 in which has forced him to mortgage to the English 
 capitalist a very large portion — and the securest por- 
 tion, too, of his revenues — namely, that which he 
 derives from Egypt, amounting, in fact, in a fiscal and 
 financial point of view, to an actual dismemberment of 
 the Turkish Empire by a separation of Egypt from it. 
 Why is it that the noble Lord has to-night come for- 
 ward as the defender of the Greeks ? Is it that he has 
 discovered, when this war is over, that Turkey, which 
 he has undertaken to protect, the Empire which he is to
 
 150 Bright's Speeches 
 
 defend and sustain against the Emperor of Russia, will 
 have been smothered under his affectionate embrace? 
 or, to quote the powerful language of the Times, when 
 the Vienna note was refused, that whatever else may be 
 the result of the war in which Turkey has plunged 
 Europe, this one thing is certain, that at its conclusion 
 there may be no Turkish Empire to talk about ? 
 ***** 
 
 Now, I am prepared to show that, from the beginning 
 of this dispute, there is not a single thing which Austria 
 wished to do in the course of the negotiations, or even 
 which France wished to do, that the Government of 
 the noble Lord did not systematically refuse its assent 
 to, and that the noble Lord's Government is alone re- 
 sponsible for the failure in every particular point which 
 took place in these negotiations. I will not trouble the 
 House by going into the history of these negotiations 
 now, further than just to state two facts, which will not 
 take more than a few sentences. The noble Lord 
 referred to the note which Russia wanted Turkey to 
 sign, known as the Menchikoff note ; but the noble 
 Lord knows as well as I do, that when the French 
 Ambassador, M. De la Cour, went to Constantinople, 
 or whilst he was at Constantinople, he received express 
 instructions from the Emperor of the French not to 
 take upon himself the responsibility of inciting the 
 Sultan to reject that note. [" No."] I know this is 
 the fact, because it is stated in Lord Cowley's despatch 
 to the noble Lord. 
 
 I am expressing no opinion on the propriety of what 
 was here done ; I simply state the fact : and it was 
 through the interference of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe — 
 acting, I presume, in accordance with instructions from 
 our Cabinet, and promising the intervention of the 
 fleets — that the rejection of that note was secured. 
 The next fact I have to mention is this : When in 
 September, last year, the last propositions were drawn 
 up by Counts Buol and Nesselrode, and offered at 
 Olmiitz by the Emperor, as a final settlement of the 
 question, although Austria and Prussia were in favour 
 of those propositions ; though Lord Westmoreland
 
 Russian War 151 
 
 himself said (I do not quote his exact words, but their 
 substance) that they were of such a nature as might be 
 received, thus indicating his favourable opinion of 
 them; and though, likewise, the Emperor of the French 
 himself declared that they guarded all the points in 
 which England and France were concerned (for this 
 was stated by Count Walewski when he said that the 
 Emperor was prepared to order his Ambassador at 
 Constantinople to sign them along with the other 
 Ambassadors, and to offer them to the Porte in ex- 
 change for the Vienna note), nevertheless, the Earl of 
 Clarendon wrote, not in a very statesmanlike manner 
 in such an emergency, but in almost a contemptuous 
 tone, that our Government would not, upon any con- 
 sideration, have anything further to do with the Vienna 
 note. The rejection, first of the amended Menchikoff 
 note, and then of the Olmutz note, was a policy adopted 
 solely by the Government of this country, and only 
 concurred in, but not recommended, by the French 
 Government and the other Governments of Europe. 
 Whether this policy was right or wrong, there can be 
 no doubt of the fact ; and I am prepared to stake my 
 reputation for accuracy and for a knowledge of the 
 English language on this interpretation of the docu- 
 ments which have been laid before us. That being so, 
 on what pretence could we expect that Austria should 
 go to war in company with us for objects far beyond 
 what she thought satisfactory at the beginning ? or 
 why should we ask the Emperor of the French to go to 
 war for objects which he did not contemplate, and to 
 insist on conditions which, in the month of September 
 of last year, he thought wholly unnecessary ? 
 ***** 
 I say now what I stated in March last, and what I 
 have since said and written to the country, that you are 
 making war against the Government which accepted 
 your own terms of peace ; and I state this now only for 
 the purpose of urging upon the House and upon the 
 Government that you are bound at least, after making 
 war for many months, to exact no further terms from 
 the State with which you are at war, than such as will
 
 152 Bright' s Speeches 
 
 give that security which at first you believed to be 
 necessary ; and that if you carry on a war for vengeance 
 — if you carry on a war for conquest— if you carry on a 
 war for purposes of Government at home, as many 
 Avars have been carried on in past times, I say you will 
 be guilty of a heinous crime, alike in the eyes of God 
 and of man. 
 
 One other remark perhaps the House will permit me 
 to make. The noble Lord spoke very confidently to- 
 night ; and a very considerable portion of his speech — 
 hoping, as I do, for the restoration of peace at some 
 time or another — was to me not very satisfactory. I 
 think that he would only be acting a more statesmanlike 
 part if, in his speeches, he were at least to abstain from 
 those trifling but still irritating charges which he is 
 constantly making against the Russian Government. I 
 can conceive one nation going to war with another 
 nation; but why should the noble Lord say, "The 
 Sovereign of that State does not allow Bibles to be 
 circulated — he suppressed this thing here, and he put 
 down something else there"? What did one of the 
 noble Lord's present colleagues say of the Government 
 of our ally ? Did he not thank God that his despotism 
 could not suppress or gag our newspaper press, and 
 declare that the people of France were subject to the 
 worst tyranny in Europe ? These statements from a 
 Minister — from one who has been Prime Minister, and 
 who, for aught I know, may be again Prime Minister — 
 show a littleness that I did not expect from a statesman 
 of this country, whose fate and whose interests hang on 
 every word the noble Lord utters, and when the fate of 
 thousands — aye, and tens of thousands — may depend on 
 whether the noble Lord should make one false step in 
 the position in which he is now placed. 
 
 -x- -::- * -:;- -::- 
 
 Now Sir, I have only to speak on one more point. 
 My hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding, in 
 what he said about the condition of the English army 
 in the Crimea, I believe expressed only that which all in 
 this House feel, and which, I trust, every person in this 
 country capable of thinking feels. When I look at
 
 Russian War 153 
 
 Gentlemen on that Bench, and consider all their policy 
 has brought about within the past twelve months, I 
 scarcely dare trust myself to speak of them, either in 
 or out of their presence. We all know what we have 
 lost in this House. Here, sitting near me, very often 
 sat the Member for Frome (Colonel Boyle). I met him 
 a short time before he went out, at Mr. Westerton's, 
 the bookseller, near Hyde Park Corner. I asked him 
 whether he was going out ? He answered, he was 
 afraid he was ; not afraid in the sense of personal fear 
 — he knew not that ; but he said, with a look and a tone 
 I shall never forget, " It is no light matter for a man 
 who has a wife and five little children." The stormy 
 Euxine is his grave; his wife is a widow, his children 
 fatherless. On the other side of the House sat a 
 Member, with whom I was not acquainted, who has 
 lost his life, and another of whom I knew something 
 (Colonel Blair). Who is there that does not recollect 
 his frank, amiable, and manly countenance ? I doubt 
 whether there were any men on either side of the House 
 who were more capable of fixing the goodwill and affec- 
 tion of those with whom they were associated. Well, 
 but the place that knew them shall know them no more 
 for ever. 
 
 I have specified only two ; but there are a hundred 
 officers who have been killed in battle, or who have 
 died of their wounds ; forty have died of disease ; and 
 more than two hundred others have been wounded more 
 or less severely. This has been a terribly destructive war 
 to officers. They have been, as one would have expected 
 them to be, the first in valour as the first in place ; 
 they have suffered more in proportion to their numbers 
 than the commonest soldiers in the ranks. This has 
 spread sorrow over the whole country. I was in the 
 House of Lords when the vote of thanks was moved. 
 In the gallery were many ladies, three-fourths of whom 
 were dressed in the deepest mourning. Is this nothing ? 
 And in every village cottages are to be found into which 
 sorrow has entered, and, as I believe, through the policy 
 of the Ministry, which might have been avoided. No 
 one supposes that the Government wished to spread the
 
 154 Bright's Speeches 
 
 pall of sorrow over the land; but this we had a right 
 to expect — that they would at least show becoming 
 gravity in discussing a subject the appalling conse- 
 quences of which may come home to individuals and 
 to the nation. I recollect when Sir Robert Peel ad- 
 dressed the House on a dispute which threatened hos- 
 tilities with the United States,— I recollect the gravity 
 of his countenance, the solemnity of his tone, his whole 
 demeanour showing that he felt in his soul the responsi- 
 bility that rested on him. 
 
 I have seen this, and I have seen the present Ministry. 
 There was the buffoonery at the Reform Club. Was 
 that becoming a matter of this grave nature? Has 
 there been a solemnity of manner in the speeches heard 
 in connection with this war— and have Ministers shown 
 themselves statesmen and Christian men when speaking 
 on a subject of this nature ? It is very easy for the 
 noble Lord the Member for Tiverton to rise and say 
 that I am against war under all circumstances ; and 
 that if an enemy were to land on our shores, I should 
 make a calculation as to whether it would be cheaper 
 to take him in or keep him out, and that my opinion on 
 this question is not to be considered either by Parlia- 
 ment or the country. I am not afraid of discussing the 
 war with the noble Lord on his own principles. I 
 understand the Blue Books as well as he ; and, leaving 
 out all fantastic and visionary notions about what will 
 become of us if something is not done to destroy or to 
 cripple Russia, I say — and I say it with as much con- 
 fidence as I ever said anything in my life — that the war 
 cannot be justified out of these documents ; and that 
 impartial history will teach this to posterity if we do 
 not comprehend it now. 
 
 I am not, nor did I ever pretend to be, a statesman ; 
 and that character is so tainted and so equivocal in our 
 day, that I am not sure that a pure and honourable 
 ambition would aspire to it. I have not enjoyed for 
 thirty years, like these noble Lords, the honours and 
 emoluments of office. I have not set my sails to every 
 passing breeze. I am a plain and simple citizen, sent 
 here by one of the foremost constituencies of the Empire,
 
 Russian War 155 
 
 representing feebly, perhaps, but honestly, I dare aver, 
 the opinions of very many, and the true interests of all 
 those who have sent me here. Let it not be said that 
 I am alone in my condemnation of this war, and of this 
 incapable and guilty Administration. And, even if I 
 were alone, if mine were a solitary voice, raised amid 
 the din of arms and the clamours of a venal press, I 
 should have the consolation I have to-night — and which 
 I trust will be mine to the last moment of my existence 
 — the priceless consolation that no word of mine has 
 tended to promote the squandering of my country's 
 treasure or the spilling of one single drop of my 
 country's blood. 
 
 XII 
 
 RUSSIAN WAR— III. : NEGOTIATIONS AT 
 
 VIENNA 
 
 (from hansard) 
 
 House of Commons, February 23, 1855. 
 
 I cannot but notice, in speaking to Gentlemen who sit 
 on either side of this House, or in speaking to anyone 
 I meet between this House and any of those localities 
 we frequent when this House is up — I cannot, I say, 
 but notice that an uneasy feeling exists as to the news 
 which may arrive by the very next mail from the East. 
 I do not suppose that your troops are to be beaten in 
 actual conflict with the foe, or that they will be driven 
 into the sea ; but I am certain that many homes in 
 England in which there now exists a fond hope that 
 the distant one may return — many such homes may be 
 rendered desolate when the next mail shall arrive. The 
 Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land ; 
 you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no 
 one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle 
 with blood the lintel and the two side-posts of our doors, 
 that he may spare and pass on ; he takes his victims 
 from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy,
 
 156 B right's Speeches 
 
 r 
 
 and the cottage of the poor and the lowly, and it is on 
 behalf of all these classes that I make' this solemn 
 appeal. 
 
 I tell the noble Lord (Lord Palmerston), that if he be 
 ready honestly and frankly to endeavour, by the negotia- 
 tions about to be opened at Vienna, to put an end to this 
 war, no word of mine, no vote of mine, will be given to 
 shake his power for one single moment, or to change his 
 position in this House. I am sure that the noble Lord 
 is not inaccessible to appeals made to him from honest 
 motives and with no unfriendly feeling. The noble Lord 
 has been for more than forty years a Member of this 
 House. Before I was born, he sat upon the Treasury 
 bench, and he has spent his life in the service of his 
 country. He is no longer young, and his life has extended 
 almost to the term allotted to man. I would ask, I would 
 entreat the noble Lord to take a course which, when 
 he looks back upon his whole political career — -whatever 
 he may therein find to be pleased with, whatever to re- 
 gret — cannot but be a source of gratification to him. 
 By adopting that course he would have the satisfaction 
 of reflecting that, having obtained the object of his 
 laudable ambition — having become the foremost subject 
 of the Crown, the director of, it may be, the destinies 
 of his country, and the presiding genius in her councils 
 —he had achieved a still higher and nobler ambition : 
 that he had returned the sword to the scabbard— that 
 at his word torrents of blood had ceased to flow — that 
 he had restored tranquillity to Europe, and saved this 
 country from the indescribable calamities of war.
 
 Danger of War with Russia 157 
 
 XIII 
 DANGER OF WAR WITH RUSSIA 
 
 Birmingham, January 13, 1878. 
 
 [The annual meeting of the members of the Borough of Birming- 
 ham was held this year at a somewhat earlier date than usual, 
 in consequence of the fact that the session of Parliament 
 began at an unusually early period. Mr. Bright took 
 occasion to dwell on the menacing appearance of affairs in 
 Eastern Europe, and to contrast the popular sentiment which 
 led to the Crimean war with the general determination of 
 the English people to take no part in the existing complica- 
 tions.] 
 
 This meeting, as you know, has been called some days 
 earlier than was some time ago intended, and you know, 
 also, that Parliament has been summoned about three 
 weeks before the usual time. It is because Parliament 
 has been summoned so early that this meeting has been 
 called so early. In ordinary times the summoning of 
 Parliament creates a considerable interest in the 
 country, but, on the whole, I think it is an interest 
 rather of a pleasurable kind. On this occasion the 
 announcement that Parliament was to meet on the 17th 
 of January had the effect of creating great anxiety ; in 
 some cases I have heard it described as consternation, 
 and in all the centres of trade it has caused a certain 
 depression which has been sensibly felt. I am driven 
 to the conclusion, at which I think a large portion of 
 the people have arrived, that the cause of all this is not 
 a fear of Parliament, but a want of confidence in the 
 Administration. We have been passing through some- 
 thing like a crisis, and we have had no decisive voice 
 from the Government. In point of fact, if one body of 
 men has said that the Government has spoken in a 
 particular way, the next body of men that you meet 
 would tell you that the Government intended something 
 entirely different. Of one thing, however, we may be 
 quite sure, that the question which fills the mind of the 
 people at this hour, and which has filled it for a long 
 time back, is the great and solemn question of peace or
 
 158 Bright's Speeches 
 
 war —and I doubt whether it would be possible to 
 submit to any people a greater question than that. 
 
 There are many in this hall who remember a period, 
 about twenty-three years ago, when the same question 
 was submitted to the nation which the nation at this 
 moment is considering, and that is, whether peace or 
 war is the true policy and the true interest of this 
 people. At that time the conclusion to which the 
 people came was a conclusion in favour of war. They 
 followed a Government that, unwisely as I thought 
 then, and as most people think now, threw them into 
 war. I think we may take some lesson from that war. 
 I read a short time ago in a very influential newspaper 
 —a newspaper which had supported the war of 1854 — 
 that it was a pity to go back at all to that question, 
 that circumstances had entirely changed, and that men 
 who were in favour of that war might very justly and 
 properly be against a repetition of it. Now, for my 
 share, I believe the arguments at the present moment 
 for war are as strong as they were in 1854 — an d m 
 point of fact, as I believe the war then had no just 
 argument in its support, so I think that now there is no 
 sound argument that can be brought forward to induce 
 this people to countenance any entrance into the 
 existing conflict. As to not going back to the past, 
 what is common with individuals ? Nothing is more 
 common and nothing more wise than to look back. 
 One of our poets has said : 
 
 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours 
 And ask them what report they bore to Heaven." 
 
 And how does a man become wiser as he grows older 
 but by looking back upon the past, and by learning 
 from the mistakes that he has made in his earlier years ? 
 And that which is true of an individual must surely 
 also be true of a nation with regard to its foreign 
 policy. 
 
 At that time the public mind was filled with false- 
 hoods, and it was in a state which we might describe 
 by saying that it became almost drunk with passion. 
 With regard to Russia, you recollect, many of you,
 
 Danger of War with Russia 159 
 
 what was said of her power, of her designs, of the 
 despotism which ruled in Russia, of the danger which 
 hung over all the freedom of all the countries of 
 Europe. And the error was not confined to a particular 
 class. It spread from the cottage to all classes above, 
 and it did not even spare those who were within the 
 precincts of the throne. It was not adopted by the 
 clergy of the Church of England only, but by the 
 ministers of the Nonconformist bodies also. The 
 poison had spread everywhere. The delusion was all- 
 pervading. The mischief seemed universal, and, as I 
 know to my cost, it was scarcely worth while to utter 
 an argument or to bring forth a fact agaiust it. Well, 
 we had a war for two years, and we know what was 
 its result ; at least we know something of it. We 
 know that the naval arsenal at Sebastopol was to a 
 large extent destroyed — that the Russian fleet was sunk 
 in the harbour of Sebastopol. We know that when 
 the treaty of peace came to be negotiated in 1856 
 Russia was forced to consent to a limitation of her 
 fleet in the Black Sea, in order that she might never in 
 future have a fleet that could menace the security of 
 Turkey. Now, there was a certain cost that was 
 necessarily paid for these things. Some people con- 
 sider that the cost, when they are going into a war or 
 when they are in it, is not of much consequence. I 
 take a different view. I think the loss of 40,000 men 
 in the prime of life, in their full powers — 40,000 men 
 killed in battle, dying from wounds, dying from horrible 
 maladies in horrible hospitals — I think that is some- 
 thing, and I think the payment of 100,000,000/. sterling 
 — and that war cost us far more — -is a serious thing for 
 a country where there are so many poor people and so 
 many families who live only to-day on the produce of 
 the labour of yesterday. But then the loss we suffered 
 was a very small loss compared to the whole loss. I 
 saw the other day a note in a work to which I will refer 
 by and by, which said that 90,000 Russians were buried 
 on the north side of the city of Sebastopol during that 
 siege, and it was stated in the House of Lords — I think 
 by Lord Lansdowne during the war — that up to the
 
 160 B right's Speeches 
 
 time of the death of the Emperor of Russia— the 
 Emperor Nicholas— 240,000 Russians had died or been 
 killed, and it is stated upon good authority that the 
 whole loss in men to the Russians during that two 
 years' war was not less than 500,000. So that by 
 adding our loss, and the French loss, and the Turkish 
 loss, and the Sardinian loss, Mr. Kinglake reckons that 
 the whole cost of the two years of that war was little if 
 any less than 1,000,000 human lives. 
 
 Now, it cannot be wrong, and it cannot be unwise, 
 that we should look back and see what that war cost 
 and what it gained. The result of it was that Russia, 
 for the time and in that particular part of her empire in 
 the Crimea, was vanquished, and a treaty of peace was 
 agreed to at Paris in the year 1856. Now I want to 
 show you just for a moment how mistaken were some 
 of the opinions that were expressed at the time. I will 
 only give you two little extracts. In February of 1854 
 the Times newspaper, which may be taken to be a wide 
 representation, a fair representation, of a vast amount 
 of opinion in this country, said : 
 
 " To destroy Sebastopol is nothing less than to 
 demolish the entire fabric of Russian ambition in those 
 very regions where it is most dangerous to Europe. 
 This feat, and this only, would have really promoted 
 the solid and durable objects of the war." 
 
 Now, Sebastopol was destroyed, and the Russian 
 fleet then existing was sunk by the Russians to bar the 
 entrance to the harbour of Sebastopol, and Russia was 
 limited for the future so that she should never have a 
 fleet that could be a menace or be any danger to 
 Turkey. Well, the Times was not the only authority 
 which made a statement of this kind. There is a work, 
 published lately, to which I will for a moment refer — 
 that is, the third volume of the " Life of the Prince 
 Consort." It is a book which I have read with intense 
 interest, many parts of it with a painful interest. It is 
 a book which gives you an exalted and, I believe, a true 
 picture of the greatness and the nobleness of the 
 character of the late Prince Consort. It is a book to 
 which no doubt her Majesty the Queen has contributed
 
 Danger of War with Russia 161 
 
 the main portion of the facts and of the contents. In 
 this work she has built up a monument which probably 
 will last as long as our language of the greatness and 
 the nobleness of the Prince. I doubt not it will last 
 longer than any of those monuments of bronze or 
 marble by which it has been sought to commemorate 
 his name and his character. 
 
 Well, in this book there are things, I have said, of 
 painful interest. I have seen some criticisms upon it 
 which go the length of saying that they think the book 
 had better not have been published now, as it is calcu- 
 lated to excite unfriendly feelings to Russia. I have 
 learned rather a different lesson from it. I think it is 
 impossible for anybody of intelligent and impartial 
 judgment to read the book through without coming to 
 the conclusion that the occurrence of that war was an 
 enormous error on the part of our statesmen, and that 
 we are bound now by all regard for our country utterly 
 to condemn it. I will give you just one paragraph from 
 one of the Prince's letters, or, rather, from a memo- 
 randum that was submitted to the Government, I think 
 in 1854. He was referring to certain expectations held 
 out to the House of Commons by Lord John Russell 
 as to what the war should result in, and he says : 
 
 " I find that the impossibility of allowing Russia to 
 retain her threatening armaments in the Crimea was 
 one of the most prominent of these expectations and 
 the one which gave most satisfaction to the House. 
 Now that vast treasure and the best English blood have 
 been profusely expended towards obtaining that object, 
 the nation has a right to expect that any peace con- 
 templated by the Government should fully and 
 completely realize it." 
 
 He admits afterwards during the negotiations that 
 the peace was not such a peace as they would have 
 wished to have had, but it was a peace which was much 
 better than continuing the war with the complications 
 there were then in Europe. But what happened when 
 you had destroyed Sebastopol, and when the fleet was 
 sunk, and when you had limited their fleet in the future 
 by the Treaty of Paris ? If you will step over to the 
 
 L
 
 1 62 B right's Speeches 
 
 year 1871 you will find that the main article of the 
 treaty — the limitation of the Russian fleet in the Black 
 Sea, the article to which the Russians were, I suppose, 
 more opposed than to any other, because they considered 
 it was more humiliating — that article was surrendered 
 by our Government and by other Governments of 
 Europe — I will not say actually without remonstrance, 
 though I think I might almost say so, but without any 
 strong remonstrance, and without anything like a blow ; 
 so that everything has failed. You destroyed a large 
 number of lives, you spent the money, and you dis- 
 turbed the peace of Europe, and the end of it was that 
 nothing whatsoever was gained, because fifteen years 
 afterwards everything was relinquished, or nearly every- 
 thing, for which war had been waged. The Russian 
 fleet is no longer limited in the Black Sea. Turkey, for 
 which you made war, is not only not safe, but is in 
 much greater danger than she ever was before ; and it 
 is obvious, from what we have seen, that, in comparison 
 with Turkey, Russia is just as powerful as if the war of 
 1854 had never taken place, and at that time we had, 
 as you recollect, a great ally in the Emperor of the 
 French. 
 
 Now, I should like to tell you what sort of an ally he 
 was ; fortunately we have not one of that kind now. 
 France never was in favour of the war. The Emperor 
 went into the war, not because he cared about Turkey 
 or cared about Russia, but because he wanted to asso- 
 ciate himself with respectable old monarchical institu- 
 tions — with a respectable old monarchically governed 
 country. He thought that some things that had taken 
 place in his career might be forgotten, and that he 
 would come out able to enter the very high society of 
 the sovereigns of Europe. Now, what the Prince says 
 about this is as follows : writing to his uncle Leopold, 
 the late King of the Belgians, in December, 1855, he 
 says, " I really believe there is not a single soul in 
 France who ever gave himself the smallest concern 
 about the maintenance of the Turkish empire." And 
 he says further, in the year 1856, in February, " We 
 know that England is hated all over the Continent, that
 
 Danger of War with Russia 163 
 
 even in France it is the Emperor, and the Emperor 
 alone, who is with us body and soul ;" and he added, 
 " Our position in the Conference " — the Conference 
 preceding the treaty of peace — " will be one of extreme 
 difficulty, for, except the Emperor Napoleon, we have 
 no one on our side." Therefore, whilst we were fighting 
 the despotism of the Emperor Nicholas, we had as our 
 principal ally the despotism of the Emperor Napoleon, 
 and we had none of the sympathy of that great nation 
 the French. More than 40,000 Frenchmen laid down 
 their lives in the Crimea in alliance with us for a cause 
 in which they had no interest, and in which their 
 country had no sympathy. 
 
 At that time Europe was not with us, and, as you 
 know, Europe is not with us now. In 1855, in May, 
 the Prince says this : " The Crimea was chosen by 
 France and England, forsaken by the rest of Europe, 
 as the only vulnerable point of attack," and he says 
 further, in 1854, " ^ there were a Germany, and a 
 German sovereign in Berlin, it [that is, the calamity of 
 this war] would never have happened." There is now 
 a Germany, and there is a German Emperor in Berlin, 
 yet the war has not been prevented. You will see, 
 therefore, from this slight sketch that there is nothing 
 but failure, nothing but disappointment in this page of 
 the history of our country ; and I want to ask you to- 
 night, and to ask all those of my countrymen who may 
 condescend to read what I am saying, I want to ask 
 them whether they are willing to write such another 
 page in our history — what shall I say? — shockingly 
 terrible and bloody, and as utterly fruitless ? For- 
 saken by Europe ! We are forsaken by Europe now. 
 Germany is not with us, Austria is not with us, Italy is 
 not with us, France is not with us — we are alone. We 
 only are constantly meddling, constantly doing or saying 
 something which is supposed to be pleasant to the 
 Turk, and which it is hoped, some people say — which 
 it is often hoped — may be unpleasant to the Emperor 
 of Russia. 
 
 Now I must ask you to consider for a moment why 
 it is that we are in this position, so different from the 
 
 l 2
 
 164 Bright's Speeches 
 
 position of the other nations of Europe. What interest 
 have we at the east end of the Mediterranean which the 
 other nations of Europe have not ? We have only one 
 point of interest, and they have it too, only we have it 
 in a greater degree, and that is in the constant free 
 maintenance of the passage through the Suez Canal. 
 We have a vast dependency in India, and, therefore, in 
 regard to military passage, and also in regard to trade 
 — we, I suppose, furnish nearly three-fourths of all the 
 shipping which passes through the canal — we have a 
 greater interest in the canal being kept open than any 
 other country in Europe has. That, of course, I admit. 
 What a strange history has that canal. It is enough to 
 teach us that we ought to examine carefully the declara- 
 tions of great statesmen and Prime Ministers before we 
 adopt a policy which they recommend to us. I recol- 
 lect hearing Lord Palmerston denounce that canal. 
 He condemned it as a thing not only of no advantage, 
 but rather to be disliked by England ; and he did not 
 believe, if it was ever made, that it could be kept open. 
 And he quoted, I think, the opinion of a distinguished 
 railway engineer with a view to strengthen his argu- 
 ment. The consequence was that the canal was made 
 almost entirely by French money, through the energy 
 of M. Lesseps, who is a very eminent Frenchman, and 
 I am not sure whether a single share in that company 
 was held originally, or has been held from the beginning, 
 by any native of this country. 
 
 I maintain that all Europe is interested in the canal, 
 and all Europe would protest against any power, be it 
 the Khedive of Egypt or the Sultan of Turkey, or 
 perhaps what is most unlikely of all, the Czar of 
 Russia, that took any steps to prevent the free passage 
 through the canal, or even dreamed of doing so. As a 
 proof of it, it is, I believe, well known that all the 
 Powers of Europe would be willing to combine with 
 us and with the French company and with France for 
 the purpose of declaring this canal not only a great 
 national or European but a great world's work, and 
 that under no conceivable circumstances shall any 
 Power, or combination of Powers, be permitted to
 
 Danger of War with Russia 165 
 
 interfere with it. M. Lesseps, the French promoter of 
 the canal, has over and over again made suggestions of 
 this kind. They have been made to our Government, 
 and I think it is a great misfortune, and have always 
 thought so, that that plan was not adopted, and that 
 the canal was not put in a condition of safety. I think 
 it is in a condition of safety now ; but I mean in a 
 condition of safety so clear and distinct and unquestion- 
 able that nobody could make use of it for the political 
 objects for which it has been made use of lately. Now, 
 why is it we cannot do this, why is it that at this 
 moment, when talking about the canal in connection 
 with Russia, that Mr. Cross in the House of Commons, 
 among the interests he specified as those which Eng- 
 land must maintain, mentioned this interest of the 
 canal ? I have heard a very eminent person on his 
 side of the House say, and acknowledge to me, " As for 
 the canal, I think that of the two the canal is in rather 
 more danger from Turkey than it is from Russia." All 
 this arises from an ignorance and, in some quarters, an 
 ignorant jealousy of Russia. That ignorant jealousy 
 has existed in this country for forty years past. 
 
 I was reading the other day a book of singular 
 interest to me, the memoirs and correspondence of the 
 late Senator Charles Sumner, a Senator of Massa- 
 chusetts, in the United States. Charles Sumner was a 
 personal friend of mine, and he corresponded with me 
 for many years. In looking over his memoirs I came 
 upon what I thought was a remarkable passage, which 
 you will permit me to read to you. It is written in one 
 of bis letters from England in 1839. It was just 
 previous to that time that there had been so much ex- 
 citement in this country about Russia, and some people 
 had really so nearly approached to a condition fit for 
 Bedlam that they believed that the Russians were likely 
 to come through the Baltic and to invade the east coast 
 of England, and they persuaded the Government of 
 that day — always too ready to be persuaded on things 
 of this kind — to add 5,000 men to the navy in order 
 that the panic might be put an end to. It is like putting 
 a plaster upon a sore. When people get into a panic
 
 1 66 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of this kind they vote two millions or five millions of 
 money, five thousand men to the navy, or five thousand 
 men to the army, and then go to their beds and sleep 
 soundly. All there is in it is that next morning they 
 have the tax-gatherer, and they pay. At that time 
 there was living in England a very eminent man, the 
 late Lord Durham. He was a member of the Reform 
 Cabinet ; he was one of the members of the committee 
 of that Cabinet who drew up the first Reform Bill. 
 He was a man of very Liberal views ; he wished the 
 Cabinet of Lord Grey not to give us a 10L franchise, 
 but household franchise, and to accompany it with the 
 ballot. I will tell you what sort of man he was. He 
 had been Ambassador at the Court of the Czar, at St. 
 Petersburg, and Mr. Sumner says this of him, — " I 
 ventured to ask him what there was in the present 
 reports with regard to the hostile intentions of Russia 
 towards England." " Not a word of truth," he said, 
 " I will give you leave to call me idiot if there is a word 
 of truth." He said that Russia was full of friendly 
 regard for England, and he pronounced the late Mr. 
 Urquhart, who died during the last autumn, somewhere 
 in the South of France, who was then going about the 
 kingdom preaching against Russia, a madman. Well, 
 I have known Mr. Urquhart in the House of Commons. 
 I would not like to say a word against him now that he 
 is not here to answer for himself, but this I may say 
 without wrong, that he was a man so possessed of 
 certain notions that it was scarcely possible to believe 
 him in a condition for fairly reasoning upon them. He 
 believed that the Czar Nicholas managed the whole 
 world by his diplomacy ; he believed Lord Palmerston 
 was bribed by the Russian Government to sell the 
 liberties of Europe and the interests of this country to 
 Russia ; he believed — and I have heard him say it in 
 the most positive manner — that the war in the Crimea 
 was waged, not to save Turkey, but to place Turkey in 
 the hands of Russia, and that if we would leave Turkey 
 alone, and leave her to fight Russia alone, Turkey was 
 perfectly safe, and Russia would be easily and finally 
 vanquished. These were the views of Mr. Urquhart,
 
 Danger of War with Russia 167 
 
 which I believe he held honestly, for he devoted years 
 of his life to preaching them, and Lord Durham said 
 that Mr. Urquhart, in preaching them, was acting like 
 a madman, and was utterly ignorant of the true state 
 of things in Russia. 
 
 No nation, I believe, has been in disposition more 
 friendly to this nation than Russia. There is no nation 
 on the Continent of Europe that is less able to do harm 
 to England, and there is no nation on the Continent of 
 Europe to whom we are less able to do harm than we 
 are to Russia. We are so separated that it seems 
 impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or 
 common sense at all, could possibly be brought into 
 conflict with each other. We have India, and men tell 
 you that India is in jeopardy from Russia. I recollect 
 a speech made last session by Mr. Laing, who has 
 been out to India as Financial Minister, that was con- 
 clusive upon that point. But there is one thing that 
 Russia can do in India, and that may be troublesome 
 to us in another way, not in the way of war or of con- 
 quest, but in the way of certain irritation and trouble. 
 You persuade the people of India by the writings of the 
 press and the speeches of public men in this country, 
 that we run great hazard from the advance of Russia, 
 and if you have enemies in India of course you feed 
 their enmity by this language, and you make them, if 
 they wish to escape from the government of England, 
 turn naturally and inevitably to Russia as the Power 
 that can help them. The interest of this country with 
 regard to Russia in connection with India is an un- 
 broken amity, and I am sure that that unbroken amity 
 might be secured if we could get rid of the miserable 
 jealousy that afflicts us. 
 
 I thought some time ago that we were approaching, 
 and I trust still we are approaching, a better time. 
 The present Emperor of Russia is not the one with 
 whom we made the war. He is a man not given to 
 military display. He is a man whose reign before this 
 war was signalized chiefly by the grand act of the 
 liberation of twenty millions of his people. He at 
 least was willing to forget the unfortunate past. He
 
 1 68 Bright's Speeches 
 
 consented that his only daughter, the loved child of his 
 heart, should marry the son of the English Queen. 
 And I thought that this was a great sign of a permanent 
 reconciliation, and a very blessed promise of a pro- 
 longed peace ; and although that has not borne in this 
 political respect all the fruit one could have wished for, 
 still I am delighted to believe that there is a great 
 change growing, and a change for the better, and a 
 change which I believe will be accelerated by what will 
 take place when this unfortunate war comes to an end. 
 
 There are still the traditions of the Foreign Office. 
 I once expressed — I was very irreverent towards such 
 an ancient institution — the wish that the Foreign Office 
 might some day be burned down ; and at least, cor- 
 recting myself, that if it should be burned down, that I 
 hoped all its mad, and baneful, and wicked traditions 
 would be burned with it. But these traditions still 
 linger in the Foreign Office, and Lord Derby — to 
 whom they are foreign — endeavouring to fill that 
 eminent office, I believe with a true intention to serve 
 his country, and to do right — has been made the victim 
 of the traditions he finds in the office which he has 
 filled for the last four or five years. But I say the 
 heart of the nation is gradually changing. I met at 
 dinner at a friend's house in Salford only the night 
 before last an old friend of mine, and he came up to me 
 and said, " Do you recollect me twenty-three or twenty- 
 four years ago ? You know I walked down Market 
 Street with you that day when you came out of the 
 Town Hall, where you had been hissed and hooted and 
 maltreated, and where you were not allowed to speak 
 to the constituents you were endeavouring to serve, 
 and when you were not allowed to pass down the street 
 without gross insult ?" Well, now, a man may have 
 an opinion in favour of peace, and the " dogs of war " 
 will scarcely bark at him. 
 
 But still we cannot disguise from ourselves the fact 
 that there is something of a war party in this country, 
 and that it has free access to some, and indeed to not 
 a few, of the newspapers of the London press. If 
 there is any man here who thinks the question of our
 
 Danger of War with Russia 169 
 
 policy doubtful, if there is any man in the country who 
 shall read what I say now who is in doubt, I ask him 
 to look back to the policy of twenty-three years ago, 
 and to see how it was then tried, and how it succeeded, 
 or how it failed. The arguments were the same then 
 exactly as they are now. The falsehoods were the 
 same. The screechings and howlings of a portion of 
 the press were just about the same. But the nation 
 now — and if nations learned nothing, how long could 
 they be sustained ? — has learned something, and it has 
 risen above this. I am persuaded that there is a great 
 difference of opinion as to Russian policy in the main, 
 or Turkish policy in this war, and men may pity 
 especially the suffering on the one side or the suffering 
 on the other — for my share, I pity the sufferings of 
 both sides, — and whatever may be our differences of 
 opinion, I think it is conclusively proved that the vast 
 bulk of all the opinion that is influential in this country 
 upon this question leads to this — that the nation is for 
 a strict and rigid neutrality throughout this war. 
 
 It is a painful and terrible thing to think how easy it 
 is to stir up a nation to war. Take up any decent 
 history of this country from the time of William III 
 until now — for two centuries, or nearly so — and you 
 will find that wars are always supported by a class of 
 arguments which, after the war is over, the people find 
 were arguments they should not have listened to. It is 
 just so now, for unfortunately there still remains the 
 disposition to be excited on these questions. Some 
 poet, I forget which it is, has said : 
 
 " Religion, freedom, vengeance, what you will, 
 A word's enough to raise mankind to kill ; 
 Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread, 
 That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed." 
 
 " Some cunning phrase by faction caught and spread " 
 like the cunning phrase of " The balance of power," 
 which has been described as the ghastly phantom 
 which the Government of this country has been pur- 
 suing for two centuries and has never yet overtaken. 
 " Some cunning phrase " like that we have now of
 
 170 Bright's Speeches 
 
 " British interests." Lord Derby has said the wisest 
 thing that has been uttered by any member of this 
 Administration during the discussions on this war 
 when he said that the greatest of British interests is 
 peace. And a hundred, far more than a hundred, 
 public meetings have lately said the same ; and millions 
 of households of men and women have thought the 
 same. To-night we shall say "Amen" to this wise 
 declaration. I am delighted to see this grand meeting 
 in this noble hall. This building is consecrated to 
 peace and to freedom. You are here in your thousands, 
 representing the countless multitudes outside. May we 
 not to-night join our voices in this resolution, that, so 
 far as we are concerned, the sanguinary record of the 
 history of our country shall be closed — that we will 
 open a new page, on which shall henceforth be inscribed 
 only the blessed message of mercy and of peace ? 
 
 XIV 
 THE LAND QUESTION— I 
 
 Birmingham, January 26, 1864. 
 
 Although I have often stood before you on this plat- 
 form, yet I can assure you that on no former occasion 
 have I felt it necessary so much to ask your forbearance 
 and your silent attention as on this occasion. I had no 
 hope a week ago that I should be able to attend here 
 to-night, and to address this large audience, but being 
 here in the performance of my duty as one of your 
 representatives, I shall endeavour to lay before you the 
 thoughts which are uppermost in my mind, and which 
 bear upon the questions in which we are all deeply 
 interested. 
 
 There are two subjects which have been treated upon 
 by my hon. Colleague, about which I would say a few 
 words before I come to that which I had intended to 
 speak about. The first is the question which now keeps 
 Europe in suspense, which may end in a war, or may end 
 in some diplomatic accommodation of a long-standing
 
 The Land Question 171 
 
 quarrel. I will not go into the history of the Danish 
 and German dispute. I have received since I came 
 here a long and most able letter from a German Pro- 
 fessor resident in this country on behalf of the German 
 view of that question — probably he is now within the 
 sound of my voice. I can only tell him, in telling you, 
 that I agree entirely, and from my heart, with every 
 word that my hon. Colleague spoke upon that question ; 
 and I will say further, that if there be a Government 
 possible in our day that will plunge this country into 
 war under the pretence of maintaining the balance of 
 power in Europe and sustaining any kingdom there, be 
 it little or great, I say that Government not only is not 
 worthy of the confidence of the people of England, but 
 deserves our execration and abhorrence. 
 
 There is one other question to which my hon. 
 Colleague has devoted a considerable portion of his 
 speech. He said, and I believe it, that a year ago he 
 felt it a painful thing to stand here and to avow opinions 
 contrary to those of many of his friends, and contrary 
 to those which I had avowed before. I told you then 
 how painful a thing it was for me to stand up and to 
 controvert on this platform any of the statements which 
 he had made. I came here to-night intending to say no 
 single word as to the question between North and 
 South in the United States. My opinion is that the 
 unanimous judgment of the people of England, so far 
 as that is ever shown upon any public question, is in 
 favour of the course which her Majesty's Government 
 have publicly declared it to be their intention to pursue. 
 I believe that my hon. Friend is mistaken in the view 
 he takes of the meaning of the result of what he calls 
 a recognition of the South. I have seen it stated by 
 authority, North as well as South, and by authority which 
 I may term English, and by authority from France, that 
 in the present condition of that quarrel, recognition, by 
 all the usages of nations, must necessarily lead to some- 
 thing more. And, therefore, although there were no 
 question of slaver)', even though it were simply a political 
 revolt, and though there were no special moral question 
 connected with it, I believe, looking to the past usage of
 
 172 Bright's Speeches 
 
 this country with regard to the rebellion of the Greeks 
 against Turkey, and with regard to the revolt of the 
 colonies of South America against Spain, that it can be 
 demonstrated that these cases afford no support what- 
 ever to the argument that we are permitted now to 
 recognize the South, and that if such recognition did take 
 place now, it could only exasperate still more the terrible 
 strife which exists on the North American Continent, 
 and would spread that strife even to Europe itself. 
 
 I am myself of opinion, as I have been from the first, 
 that the people of America— so numerous, so powerful, 
 so instructed, so capable in every way — will settle the 
 difficulties of that continent without asking the old 
 countries of Europe to take any share in them. I 
 believe that in the providence of the Supreme, the slave- 
 holder — untaught, unteachable by fact or argument, or 
 Christian precept — has been permitted to commit — I 
 will not call it the crime — but the act of suicide. 
 Whether President Lincoln be in favour of abolition ; 
 whether the Northerners are unanimous against slavery ; 
 whatever may be said or thought with regard to the 
 transactions on that continent, he must be deaf and 
 blind — and worse than deaf and blind — who does not 
 perceive that, through the instrumentality of this strife, 
 that most odious and most indescribable offence against 
 man and against heaven — the slavery of man, the 
 bondage of four millions of our fellow-creatures — is 
 coming to a certain and rapid end. 
 
 Sir, I will say of this question that I look forward to 
 the time when I shall stand on this platform with my 
 honourable Colleague, and when he will join with me 
 — for he is honest enough and frank enough to do that 
 — when he will join with me in rejoicing that there does 
 not breathe a slave on the North American Continent, 
 and that the Union has been completely restored. And 
 not only so, but he will rejoice that England did not in 
 the remotest manner, by a word or a breath, or the 
 raising of a finger, or the setting of a type, do one single 
 thing to promote the atrocious object of the leaders of 
 this accursed insurrection.
 
 The Land Question 173 
 
 I will ask you whether, during past years, you have 
 read any letters in the Times newspaper signed by the 
 initials " S. G. O." These letters were written by a 
 gentleman of rare intelligence and of great benevolence. 
 His descriptions I believe may be entirely relied upon. 
 If any of you have read some letters written three or 
 four months ago from parts of Buckinghamshire, and 
 published in the Star newspaper, with regard to the 
 condition of that population, — you will know what it is 
 that I mean, — but if you are unwilling to take their 
 evidence, let us take the evidence of a witness that 
 nobody here will call in question, and that is the evi- 
 dence of the Saturday Revieiv. On the 26th of September 
 last there was an article in that journal on " Agricultural 
 Labourers," in which it said — and I beg you to listen 
 to it, for, in point of fact, it is the great part of my 
 speech. The extract from the article reads thus : 
 
 " When the dull season of the year comes round [it 
 is between October and the meeting of Parliament] all 
 sorts of odd persons and things have their share of 
 public attention, and even agricultural labourers are 
 pitied and discussed. At other times they live on with 
 no one much to care for them — the farmer looking on 
 them as his natural enemies, the parson's kindly soul 
 getting weary of his long combat with their helpless 
 stolid ignorance, and the squire not knowing what he 
 can do for them further than build two or three Eliza- 
 bethan cottages, covered with honeysuckle, close to his 
 gates." 
 
 And then the writer of the article proceeds to say that 
 when foreigners come here and read of the condition of 
 agricultural labourers they must be much shocked, for 
 he adds : 
 
 " We are moved to a languid shame and sadness by 
 thinking how true the picture is, and what wretched, 
 uncared-for untaught brutes the people are who raise the 
 crops on which we live." 
 
 And then : 
 
 " There is a wailing over the dirt and vice and misery 
 that must prevail in houses where seven or eight persons, 
 of both sexes and all ages, are penned up together for
 
 174 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the night in the one rickety, foul, vermin-haunted bed- 
 room. The picture of agricultural life unrolls itself 
 before us as it is painted by those who know it best. 
 YVe see the dull clouded mind, the bovine gaze, the 
 brutality and recklessness, the simple audacity of vice, 
 the confused hatred of his betters, which mark the 
 English peasant, unless some happy fortune has saved 
 him from the general lot, and persuaded him that life 
 ' has something besides beer that the poor man may 
 have and may relish.' " 
 
 He then goes on to declare that " the old feudalism " 
 — feudalism is precisely the thing I mentioned — 
 
 " The old feudalism of England — the state of things 
 when there yet were serfs, and when the lords of the 
 soil were almost a different order of beings — still colours 
 the relations of the rich and the poor." 
 
 And perhaps you would like to know what he says 
 an agricultural labourer should be. The writer states : 
 
 " It is looked on as the duty and place of the poor 
 man to stay in his native village for ever ; to work hard 
 for ten or twelve shillings a week, and bring up a large 
 family respectably on the money ; to touch his hat to 
 the gentry, to go to church regularly, and to make out 
 as much as he can of the service ; to hate the public- 
 house, and feel no longing for company and a bright 
 fire or gossip, and be guided towards heaven by the 
 curate and the young ladies. This is the poor man 
 which modern feudalism actually produces, and who 
 may be seen by anyone who stands opposite the door 
 of the village beershop on a Saturday evening." 
 
 Now this is the testimony of the Saturday Review, and 
 what do you think the writer of the article from which 
 I have just quoted proposes ? — he proposes that instead 
 of a man receiving parochial relief from the parish, he 
 shall be allowed to receive it from that larger area — 
 namely, from the Union ; and that a law which he says 
 is hardly ever put in practice should be repealed, by 
 which a working-man breaking a contract to work is 
 treated as a felon. I do not believe those remedies 
 would be sufficient for the terrible malady which he has 
 described in such powerful language. May I ask you
 
 The Land Question 175 
 
 this question ? Is it the unchangeable law of Heaven 
 that the agricultural population of this country shall 
 continue in that condition ? Writers tell you, that your 
 agriculture is far better than any other agriculture, that 
 you produce a larger quantity of wheat or any other 
 produce over a given surface. We know that there is 
 the greatest market in the world close at their doors, 
 and the means of conveyance to every part of the king- 
 dom. Then I want to know why it is that the labouring 
 population upon the farms of this country are in the 
 condition I have just described. Is it so in the most 
 civilized parts of Euope ; is it so in the United States 
 of America ? No. I could give you, if it were not that 
 reading evidence from books is not suited to a speech, 
 and to a great meeting like this — I could read you evi- 
 dence from every kind of man — from the highest in rank 
 — from the most cultivated in mind — from the most 
 extensively known in public affairs — I could prove to 
 you, beyond all doubt, that in all these countries in 
 Europe where the land is divided and the people have 
 a chance of having some of it — those, in fact, who are 
 industrious and frugal — that the condition of the agri- 
 cultural and peasant population is infinitely superior to 
 anything that is to be seen in Great Britain and 
 Ireland. 
 
 Well, then, you may ask me very reasonably, — what 
 is the difference between the laws of these countries 
 and the laws of ours, and what changes do you propose ? 
 I will tell you in as few words as I can. In the greatest 
 portion of the Continent of Europe — in France, in 
 Germany, in Belgium, in Holland and in Norway, and 
 in point of fact it is likely to become general, through- 
 out Europe, the law follows what is believed to be the 
 natural law of affection and justice between parent and 
 children. The large portion of the property of the 
 parent must be by will (or if not by will the law will so 
 order it) divided amongst the children ; not land alone, 
 but all the property of the parent, according to the 
 number of his children. And you are to be frightened 
 by this law of bequests as if it were something very 
 dreadful. It only follows the rule which the majority
 
 176 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of your merchants, your manufacturers, and of all the 
 people in the world have followed in these later days, 
 of treating their children with equal affection and with 
 equal justice. On going to the United States, you find 
 a very different state of the law. There a man may 
 leave his property as he likes amongst his children, 
 because the United States' law believes that natural 
 affection and justice are of themselves a sufficient law 
 in the majority of cases, and therefore that it is not 
 necessary to enforce these moral duties by any statute. 
 But if a man dies without leaving a will, the law of the 
 United States takes his property, and looking upon his 
 children with equal affection and equal justice, makes 
 that distribution which it believes the just and living 
 parent would have made. 
 
 But if you come to this country what do you find ? 
 You find this, that with regard to all kinds of property, 
 except what is called real property (meaning the land 
 of the country and the houses upon it), the law does 
 exactly the same thing. It divides it equally amongst 
 the children, because it knows that this is what the 
 parent should have done, and would have done, if he 
 had been a just parent. But when it comes to the 
 question of the land, our law is contrary to the Euro- 
 pean law which makes a statute according to natural 
 justice, contrary to the United States' law, which, when 
 there is no will, makes a distribution also in accordance 
 with natural justice. Thus our law steps in and does 
 that which natural justice would forbid. Now I should 
 like to know if anybody is prepared to deny this. 
 Personalty, that is, property which is not land, is 
 divided equally ; the property which is land is not 
 divided equally, but is given to the eldest son in one 
 lump. Now, tell me whether the principle which the 
 law of Europe for the most part wishes to enforce, that 
 which the law of America enforces when there is no 
 will, that which we enforce when land is not in ques- 
 tion — whether that is not a more just law, does not 
 approve itself more to the hearts of men, and before the 
 eye of Heaven, than a law by which we send beggars 
 into the world, — it may be half a dozen children, — that
 
 The Land Question 177 
 
 we may make one rich in the possession of unnecessary 
 abundance ? 
 
 What are the reasons — these things are not done 
 without reasons— ask anybody what are the reasons, 
 and you are told, perhaps, that they are high political 
 reasons. These high political reasons are often very 
 curious. In some countries— in Turkey, for example — 
 it has been the custom for a long time, and is hardly 
 abandoned yet, that the wielder of the sceptre should 
 destroy his younger brothers, lest they should become 
 competitors with him for the throne. What would you 
 think if the law of this country doomed all the younger 
 children to a want of freedom and to a total want of 
 education, — if it conferred ali the freedom and all the 
 education on the eldest sons, and left the others to go 
 to the streets ? It would be as reasonable to cut off all 
 the younger boys and girls from all education and all 
 freedom, as it is to cut them off from their share of their 
 father's property. But you will find to-morrow morning, 
 in all probability, that the editor in this town, — who 
 does not generally, as I have noticed, serve you up very 
 strong meat, — will say, if he comments on this part of 
 my speech, what use would it be to make a law that the 
 property shall be divided in cases where there is no will, 
 when men die so seldom without making a will, and 
 will argue that the difference will be very small. I will 
 tell you what difference it would make. It would take 
 the tremendous sanction of the law from the side of 
 evil, and put it on the side of good. 
 
 There is a case — it is the only one which occurs to 
 me— bearing upon this point. About the time when 
 the American colonies were severed from this country, 
 the laws of primogeniture and entail were enforced in 
 the State of Virginia in the most rigid manner. Mr. 
 Jefferson, who was afterwards President of the Republic, 
 considered it one of the greatest acts of his life that he 
 prevailed upon the Legislature of Virginia to abolish 
 these laws. You will find this statement in his Life : 
 " The class which thus provided for the perpetuation of 
 its wealth also monopolized the civil honours of the 
 colony." You will be able to judge whether that is not 
 
 M
 
 178 Bright's Speeches 
 
 very much the case in this country. Amongst the 
 reasons which he gave for abolishing the law of entails 
 was that he wished " to make an opening for the aris- 
 tocracy of virtue and talent, which Nature has wisely 
 provided for the direction of the interests of society, 
 and scattered with equal hand throughout all its con- 
 ditions." And when he came to the abolition of 
 the law and custom of primogeniture, that is, by the 
 enactment of a law that property should be equally 
 divided whenever the parents did not leave a will, it is 
 said by his biographer that these laws — 
 
 " Have not merely altered the distribution of that part 
 of the landed property which is transmitted to surviving 
 relatives by the silent operation of law, but they have 
 also operated on public opinion so as to influence the 
 testamentary disposition of it by the proprietors, with- 
 out which last effect the purpose of the Legislature 
 might have been readily defeated. The cases are now 
 very rare in which a parent makes, by his will, a much 
 more unequal distribution of his property among his 
 children than the law itself would make. It is thus 
 that laws, themselves the creatures of public opinion, 
 often powerfully re-act on it." 
 
 And he goes on to show that the effect of the distribu- 
 tion was to lessen the chances of a man being so enor- 
 mously rich, and to give an opportunity to a large num- 
 ber to become moderately so. He said further, that if 
 there were fewer coaches and six in the State of Virginia, 
 there were twenty times as many carriages and pairs. 
 
 I have thus briefly touched upon the question of 
 primogeniture. The question of entails is much of the 
 same kind, and with regard to its effect upon the public 
 I shall only say a sentence or two. The object of 
 entailing land is to keep great estates together, and to 
 keep them in one family. Upon this system land in 
 this country is some times tied up for fifty, or eighty, 
 or a hundred years, no person having power to sell it, 
 however advantageous it might be to the proprietors 
 that the land should be sold. And then, if you come 
 to the question of the difficulties of transfer, I might 
 ask gentlemen near me connected with the law — and
 
 The Land Question 179 
 
 they will tell you that it always takes months, and it 
 sometimes takes years, to prove a title ; and the cost of 
 this in money comes to no inconsiderable portion of the 
 purchase money of the property. 
 
 Now, may I ask you what is the political reason for 
 which this state of things is maintained ? It is for the 
 very reason for which this system was established eight 
 hundred years ago — that there may be in this country 
 a handful of persons, three or four times as many as 
 there are here — twice as many, perhaps — who are the 
 owners of nearly all the land, in whose hand is con- 
 centrated nearly all the power, by whom the Govern- 
 ment of the country is mainly conducted, and amongst 
 whom the patronage of the Government is mainly dis- 
 tributed. In every country in the world, as far as I 
 know, the possessors of land are the possessors of 
 power. In France, at this moment, we all know per- 
 fectly well that, notwithstanding there may be a revolu- 
 tion now and then in the streets of Paris, if you come 
 to the question of voting, the majority of the voting 
 population at this moment are found in the number of 
 the proprietors of the land. Ten or twelve years ago 
 it was their suffrages which conferred the supreme 
 power on the present Emperor of the French. If you 
 go across the Atlantic, and study the political system 
 of the United States, where almost all the farmers are 
 owners of their farms, you will find that they are the 
 holders of political power. The city of New York may 
 denounce the policy of the Government at Washington ; 
 but it is the land-owning farmers — the cultivators of 
 the great States in the interior of the country — who are 
 the real holders of political power, and by whose will 
 alone the President of the United States is able to carry 
 on the great matters which belong to his exalted station. 
 It is the same in the Southern States, for the great 
 planting population — the owners of immense plantations 
 — are the life and soul of Southern politics. And if you 
 come to our own country — to your own county, War- 
 wickshire, or any county you choose to walk into — you 
 will find that two or three great landowners can sit 
 down together and determine who shall or shall not 
 
 m 2
 
 180 Bright's Speeches 
 
 go to Parliament, as the pretended representative of the 
 population in that county. 
 
 I believe that with these vast properties, which are 
 of no real advantage to those who hold them — for 
 100,000/. a year, or 200,000/. a year, can give no man 
 greater real happiness than 10,000/. or 5,000/. a year, — I 
 say these great properties, with great political power, 
 form what we call our great territorial system — a system 
 which prevails to an extent in this country which is 
 probably unknown in any other, but which leaves the 
 cultivator of the soil ignorant, and hopeless, and de- 
 pendent, and degraded. There is, as you know, a great 
 tendency to increase the size of farms throughout the 
 country, a practice which makes it still more difficult 
 for the labourer ever to become a tenant, or to rise from 
 the condition in which he is. You see a ladder — the 
 social ladder — upon which you wish to see the poor, 
 and depressed, and unfortunate nine-or-ten-shillings-a- 
 week-labourer ascend gradually. You would rejoice 
 to see him get up a few steps and become a farmer, 
 although but in a small way ; or the owner of a small 
 piece of land. But you find that for six or eight, or 
 ten feet up the ladder, the steps are broken out ; and, 
 in his low position, he has not a chance of beginning 
 the ascent. Let there be steps in the shape of small 
 farms and small estates, and land freely bought and 
 sold, and then he will have something to hope for, 
 something to save even his small earnings for, that he 
 may be enabled to purchase or to occupy one of these 
 small farms and get away from the humble and melan- 
 choly position in which he is now, to one which I wish, 
 from my soul, every labourer in this country could find 
 himself placed in. 
 
 Now, Sir . . . for fear that the Man in the Mask should 
 misrepresent me to-morrow, let me tell you that I am 
 not against great estates, or great farms, or great fac- 
 tories, but I have a very great liking for small estates, 
 small farms, and small factories. In this country, 
 where there is such a rapid creation of wealth, there is 
 always a great power urging to the accumulation of 
 land. I know the case of a nobleman now, in a
 
 The Land Ouestion 181 
 
 southern county, from report, who is stated to have an 
 income of 120,000/. a year ; and being a wise man, as 
 regards his expenditure compared with his income, 
 he only spends — though it is a mystery to me how he 
 spends it — he only spends 40,000/. a year, and he has 
 80,000/. a year left. What does he do with this ? He 
 buys up every farm, every estate, big or little, all over 
 the district, and the consequence is that his immense 
 estate is constantly becoming larger. I do not blame 
 him for that. I applaud him so far, that he is a man 
 who does not waste his property, and I have heard 
 that among those with whom he lives he is a man of 
 excellent character. There are persons who come from 
 Manchester, from Leeds, and there are some in Birm- 
 ingham who are able to purchase large estates. There 
 is a, tendency to this in this country, where we have 
 so much manufacturing and commercial industry, and 
 wealth to buy estates with. In addition to this, their 
 possession gives great social position and great political 
 influence. I am not complaining of this. It is a 
 natural, and advantageous, and healthy thing ; for it 
 is desirable that farmers should have the stimulus of 
 ambition to have a larger farm, and that the men who 
 have an estate should have an ambition — if they can 
 entertain it honestly — to have a larger estate. The 
 stimulus by which men strive at something honourable 
 is useful to the country ; but at the same time, to add 
 to this the force of a most intricate and complicated 
 system of law, to give to this force greater force, is, in 
 my opinion, contrary to all the true interests of Eng- 
 land ; and I believe if it goes on for another half-century, 
 as it has for the last half-century, it will cause great 
 discontent and great embarrassment within this now 
 peaceful kingdom. 
 
 What I propose is this. . . . First of all, that the law 
 shall declare that when any person owning property dies 
 without making a distribution of it by will, the law shall 
 distribute it upon the same principle that it now adopts 
 when it divides — I am now speaking of landed property — 
 any other kind of property. For example: Supposeaman 
 has got moneyin the bank — I wish everybody had — sup-
 
 1 82 Bright's Speeches 
 
 pose he has machinery in his mill, merchandise in his 
 warehouse, ships upon the ocean, or that he has shares, 
 or the parchments for them in his safe — if he dies, the 
 Government by the law, or rather the law itself, makes 
 a distribution of all that property amongst all his 
 children, in accordance with the great universal law of 
 natural parental affection and justice. Then, I say, let 
 that principle be extended to all the property which a 
 man may die possessed of; and, so far as that goes, I want 
 no further change. Then, with regard to the question 
 of entails, I would say this : the Spectator proposes that 
 a man, by entailing his property — so far as I can under- 
 stand — shall only prevent himself and his next heir 
 from disposing of it — that there shall be, in point of 
 fact, only two persons in the entail. Now, what I 
 propose is, that a man may leave his property to as 
 many persons as he likes, to A, B, C, D, and E and F, 
 and so on all through the alphabet, if they are all alive 
 at the time he makes his will, and he can put all their 
 names into it. But at present he can leave it to these 
 people, and to a child then unborn, and who shall not 
 be born, it may be, till twenty years after he has made 
 his will. I would cut that off. I contend that it should 
 be left to persons who are in existence, and whose names 
 are in the will, and you will find that as A, B, and C 
 died it would finally come into the hands of a man who 
 would have the absolute disposal of, and who could 
 keep, or sell, or give, or waste it as he pleased. 
 
 And I believe it will be much better for the public 
 when that freedom of transfer is given to the possessors 
 of land which is given to the possessors of every other 
 kind of property. If I were to sit down for ten minutes 
 and a lawyer were to take my place, he could tell you 
 what a trouble our law is ; and— although I am sorry 
 that some of them think that they make a good thing 
 out of it — what a curse it is to a man who buys landed 
 property or who sells it. Everything which I am pro- 
 posing is carried out, I believe, through most of the 
 States in the American Union, and to a greater extent 
 on the Continent of Europe, and is being adopted in 
 the Australian colonies. It is the most curious thing
 
 The Land Question 183 
 
 in the world, that whenever an Englishman leaves these 
 shores — whether it is the effect of the salt air, or of sea- 
 sickness, or the result of that prolonged meditation 
 which a voyage of some weeks' duration invites, I do 
 not know — but whenever an Englishman leaves these 
 shores, the effect is to peel off, not the rags of his body, 
 but the verminous rags from his intellect and soul. He 
 leaves behind him in England all the stupidity which 
 some of us cherish, and he lands in Australia with his 
 vision so clear that he can see things in a common- 
 sense manner. 
 
 I want to ask you as reasonable men, as men of busi- 
 ness — there is not a man who cannot understand this 
 question moderately well — is this spoliation? Is this 
 agrarian outrage ? Is this stimulating the working- 
 man and the agricultural labourer to — what shall I say ? 
 — to, it may be, incendiarism or to something worse ? 
 It is nothing of the kind ; it is but laying before them 
 those just principles of law and practice which are 
 admitted to be just in every other country in the world 
 than this, and which we admit to be just with regard 
 to everything else, except the single article of land. 
 
 We are charged with all sorts of dreadful things by 
 that gentleman in the Mask. On the 27th of November 
 he wrote this of Mr. Cobden. He said : 
 
 " He [Mr. Cobden] stoops down and picks up a 
 weapon which has never yet been used but for anarchy 
 and revolution. Is it not, in fact, to tell the labourer 
 and the workman to look over the fence of the neigh- 
 bouring proprietor, and learn to think that they have a 
 natural right to a slice of the soil ?" 
 
 Surely, if they are industrious and frugal, and can 
 save the means to purchase, and there be anybody who 
 would wish to sell, and the law steps in and makes it 
 difficult to sell and to buy, then, I say, that labourer has 
 a right to look over the hedge, and to feel that the law 
 deals a grievous injustice to him. 
 
 And it is this gentleman in the Mask that frightens 
 the landed proprietors. I met the other day with a 
 gentleman connected with one of the largest properties 
 in the kingdom. He said to me, — and he is a very
 
 184 Bright's Speeches 
 
 liberal and thoughtful man, — he said to me : " You 
 have no idea of the terror which your speeches create 
 amongst landed gentlemen." Now, I never frighten 
 any of my neighbours. 1 do not know why I should 
 be so alarming to those gentlemen who live in their 
 great houses and castles. But the fact is the landed 
 gentlemen are not a wise class. There are brilliant 
 exceptions. There are men amongst them, many of 
 whom cannot be surpassed by any of their own class, 
 or of any other class in the world. But as a class, and, 
 perhaps, one might say it of nearly every class — I 
 believe it is true of that to which I belong in Lancashire 
 — they are not a wise class. They know something of 
 agriculture — county Members have to get it up for 
 agricultural dinners — and they know something of 
 horses — and they know all that can be known on the 
 subject of game. But on the principles of law and of 
 government, speaking of them as a whole, and judging 
 of them by their past course, they are dark as night 
 itself. Would you believe it — young men here do not 
 recollect it — that the landed proprietors could never 
 find out, till Mr. Cobden and a few others told them 
 that the Corn-law was a great injury to them ? They 
 did not know that it actually lowered the value of their 
 land, and diminished the security of their rents, and 
 that it loaded them with an inconceivable amount of 
 public odium ; whilst, at the same time, it beggared 
 hundreds and thousands of the people, and it menaced 
 this nation with rebellion. 
 
 Mr. Cobden and I, and others who acted with us, but 
 we chiefly, because perhaps we were the most prominent, 
 were slandered then by the gentleman in the Mask, just 
 as we have been now. The Times was as foul-mouthed 
 upon us twenty years ago as it is at this moment. It said 
 that we went about the country setting class against 
 class. It said that our views led to the confiscation of 
 landed property. It said everything that was spiteful 
 and untrue, as it says now. And yet, is there any man 
 in this country who will not admit that property is more 
 secure in consequence of the abolition of that law, which 
 landowners believed to be the anchor of their safety,
 
 The Land Question 185 
 
 and that animosities between class and class have been 
 allayed ? And who shall tell how much it is owing to 
 this reform that our Oueen at this moment wields an 
 unchallenged sceptre over a tranquil realm ? A land- 
 owner in the House of Commons, an old Member of 
 the House, a representative of a south-western county, 
 a man of excellent character, for whom I have always 
 had the greatest respect, even when he was most in the 
 wrong, — he told me not long ago, speaking about the 
 Corn-law, that they did not then know the good we 
 were doing to his class. I smiled and said to him : " If 
 you would only have faith, I could tell one or two other 
 things that would do you just as much good if you 
 would let us try them." But he had no faith. 
 
 Now, I will just say to the landowners that I was 
 never more their friend than when discussing this 
 question which I am occupied with to-night, without 
 the least animosity to them, and with a belief as firm 
 as I ever had on the question of the Corn-law, that 
 their interests are bound up with the interests of the 
 people in the right solution of this question. I would 
 ask, then, to what are they tending under the operation 
 of these laws ? They are becoming every year smaller 
 and smaller in number. The large owners are rapidly 
 eating up the smaller ones. The census returns show 
 that the number of landed proprietors is but a handful 
 in the nation, and every day becoming fewer and fewer. 
 Their labourers remain at the gs. or ios. a week. Some- 
 body will write to the paper to-morrow and say they 
 get 125. ; but bear in mind that they do not always 
 receive wages on wet days, and I believe the average 
 money-income of the agricultural labourer throughout 
 the United Kingdom will not exceed -and many per- 
 sons will say it will not reach — ios. a week. Now, the 
 smaller in number these landed proprietors become, 
 the more, it may be, these labourers will become dis- 
 contented. There may arise some political accident, 
 and political accidents are almost as unlooked-for as 
 other accidents. You do not hear the tread of the 
 earthquake which topples down your firmest architecture, 
 and you do not see — the country gentlemen do not see
 
 1 86 Bright's Speeches 
 
 — the tread of that danger, it may be that catastrophe, 
 which inevitably follows upon prolonged unjust legisla- 
 tion. There may come a time, and I dare prophesy 
 that it will come if there be an obstinate retention of 
 our present system, when there will be a movement in 
 this country to establish here, not what I believe to be 
 the just and moderate and sufficient plan which I recom- 
 mend, but a plan which shall be in accordance with that 
 which is established by the Code Napoleon in France, 
 and which is spreading rapidly over the whole of the 
 Continent of Europe. And I would ask them again 
 how do they purpose to keep their population if this 
 system is to be maintained ? 
 
 And now, addressing you working-men who are here, 
 I beg your attention to two or three observations on 
 this point. America, though three thousand miles off, 
 is not so far off but that people may go there in about 
 twelve days, and may go there for a sum varying from 
 2/. to 5/. You know that in this very year — I mean the 
 year which is just passed — 150,000 or 160,000 persons 
 have sailed from this country to New York. Every 
 man who settles there is not blinded by the mystifica- 
 tions and the falsities uttered by the New York corre- 
 spondent of the Times. He is there, and can see what 
 the working-man earns, and how he is treated, and what 
 he is, and he writes over to his friends in this country — 
 as has been the case for years in Ireland — and the re- 
 sult is that Ireland is being drained, not of its surplus 
 population, but of the population absolutely necessary 
 to the proper cultivation of the soil. 
 
 Let me tell you a fact, and if you do not treasure it 
 up in your minds, I hope some of those gentlemen, the 
 landowners, who think I am very hostile to them, will 
 just consider it, if they have time, as they eat their 
 breakfast and read the paper to-morrow, or the next 
 day. In America there are 140,000,000 of acres of land, 
 surveyed, mapped out, set apart for those who are 
 ready to settle upon them. In the year 1861 (that was 
 the first year before the war attained its present pro- 
 portions), there were not less than 40,000 new farms, 
 averaging eighty acres each, occupied in the Western
 
 The Land Question 187 
 
 States. But the Government of the United States, not 
 content with that measure of progress, framed an Act 
 which came into operation on the ist of January, 1863, 
 called the Homestead Act. I have a copy of the Act 
 here, and the circular which was issued from the Depart- 
 ment of State, giving directions as to how this Act 
 should be worked throughout the Union. What is the 
 Homestead Act ? It is this. It says that any man of 
 twenty-one years of age, or younger, if he has been- for 
 a fortnight or a little more in the service of the United 
 States, whether in the army or navy — any man of 
 twenty-one years of age may come into these terri- 
 tories, may choose what is called a section, which is 
 160 acres of land, being one-fourth of a square mile, 
 and on payment of a fee of ten dollars, which is equal 
 to two pounds English, may apply to have this land con- 
 veyed to him for no other payment for a term of five 
 years. It cannot be alienated, he is not allowed to sell 
 it, it remains in his possession. At the end of five years, 
 he having done to it what the Government requires — 
 that is, settled upon it and begun cultivation and so 
 forth, the law gives him what is called a patent, but 
 what we should call a Parliamentary title, and the land 
 is his own absolute freehold for ever. Now it would 
 not take more than 15/. for a man to go from Birming- 
 ham to the territory where this land is to be disposed 
 of. If he had not got any money by which he could 
 take up 160 acres, he might engage himself to a neigh- 
 bouring farmer, and would get, I believe, now, about 
 205. a week wages, besides his board and lodgings, 
 and if he worked as a labourer for two or three years 
 he would be able to save a sum sufficient for him to 
 commence the cultivation of a portion of his farm, and 
 would be settled down there as a farmer and freeholder 
 on his own estate. 
 
 Do not let me leave you with the idea that there is no 
 rough and rugged career in this. There is much that is 
 rough and much that is rugged, but there is a good deal 
 of that sort in this country now. And when a man 
 looks upon those children that create even in the poorest 
 house, sometimes, a gleam of joy, — when he thinks what
 
 1 88 Bright's Speeches 
 
 those boys and girls must be in this country, — that they 
 can never rise one step higher than that which he occu- 
 pies now as an agricultural labourer, and when he looks 
 abroad and he sees them, not labourers in the sense in 
 which we speak here, not tenants even, but freeholders, 
 and landowners, and farmers of their own property — 
 then, I say, that the temptation held out to men here to 
 emigrate, if men knew all the facts, would be irresistible 
 to hundreds of thousands who have now no thought 
 of moving to another country. But the agricultural 
 labourer is not as he once was, in one respect. There 
 are some feeble efforts made to give him some little 
 instruction. There are newspapers published at a price 
 which at one time was deemed impossible, and these 
 find their way into agricultural villages. And the 
 labourers will gradually begin to open their eyes, and 
 to see that a change of their position is not so impos- 
 sible as once they thought it was. What is it the 
 United States offer more ? They offer social equality — 
 they offer political equality — they offer to every child of 
 every man in whose face I am now looking, education — 
 from the learning of his alphabet to, if he has the capa- 
 city to travel so far, the highest knowledge of classics 
 and mathematics which are offered to the best students 
 in the colleges of this country. And all this without 
 the payment of one single farthing, except that general 
 payment in which all the people participate in the 
 school-rate of the various States of the Union. 
 
 I ask you if I am wrong in saying to the rich and the 
 great that I believe, if they knew their own interests, that 
 it would be worth their while to try to make this country 
 a more desirable country for the labourer to live in. If 
 they disregard this great question, we, who are of the 
 middle, and not absolutely powerless, class, shall have to 
 decide between the claims of territorial magnates and 
 the just rights of millions of our countrymen. Some 
 men I meet with — and now and then I wonder where 
 they were born, and why they came into the world- 
 regard these territorial magnates as idols before whom 
 we are all to bow down in humble submission. Travel- 
 lers tell us there is a tribe in Africa so entirely given up
 
 The Land Question 189 
 
 to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with 
 so many idols that they do not even leave room for 
 their families. It may be so in this country. We build 
 up a system which is injurious to our political freedom, 
 and is destructive of the intelligence, and the comfort, 
 and the morality, and the best interests of our producing 
 and working classes. Now, am I the enemy of any 
 class when I come forward to state facts like these, and 
 to explain principles such as these ? Shall we go on 
 groping continually in the dark, and make no effort to 
 strengthen our position ? Do not suppose because I 
 stand here oftener to find fault with the laws of my 
 country than to praise them that I am less English or 
 less patriotic, or that I have less sympathy for my 
 country or my countrymen than other men have. I 
 want our country to be populous, to be powerful, and 
 to be happy. But this can only be done — it never has 
 been done in any country — but by just laws justly 
 administered. I plead only for what I believe to be 
 just. I wish to do wrong to no man. For twenty-five 
 years I have stood before audiences — great meetings of 
 my countrymen — pleading only for justice. During 
 that time, as you know, I have endured measureless 
 insult, and have passed through hurricanes of abuse. I 
 need not tell you that my clients have not been generally 
 the rich and the great, but rather the poor and the 
 lowly. They cannot give me place and dignities and 
 wealth ; but honourable service in their cause yields me 
 that which is of far higher and more lasting value — the 
 consciousness that I have laboured to expound and 
 uphold laws which, though they were not given amid 
 the thunders of Sinai, are not less the commandments 
 of God, and not less intended to promote and secure 
 the happiness of men. 
 
 [The Settled Land Act, passed 1882, has since carried out Mr. 
 Bright' s views, to a certain extent, by greatly facilitating the sale 
 of settled estates.]
 
 190 Bright's Speeches 
 
 xv 
 
 THE LAND QUESTION— II 
 
 Birmingham, 'January 22, 1876, 
 
 Now let me ask your attention to this for two or three 
 minutes. Lord Derby is a man very superior to many 
 of his order and of his party. He has always been 
 industrious ; he is well informed ; he is not troubled 
 with many prejudices ; I am not sure whether he has 
 strong convictions — I know that on many things he has 
 held Liberal opinions, but I confess I am astonished 
 that he should have dared to make statements with 
 regard to the land such as he has made, with the know- 
 ledge that he ought to have, even to those uninquiring 
 gentlemen who are called the 3,000 Conservative work- 
 ing-men of the city of Edinburgh, and that he should 
 have made these statements in that city and in that 
 country where the monopoly of land is the closest, prob- 
 ably, of any part of the United Kingdom. From this 
 very return which be has obtained, it turns out that 
 5,000,000 of acres out of less than 19,000,000 in Scot- 
 land — that 5,000,000 acres, or considerably more than 
 one-fourth of the whole of Scotland, are in the posses- 
 sion of twenty-one persons ; that 8,000,000 acres, which 
 is not far short of one-half of all Scotland, are in the 
 possession of forty-nine persons ; that 14,560,000 acres, 
 or more than three-fourths of all Scotland, are in the 
 possession of 583 persons. And if you were to take all 
 the square miles of all the estates, of all the farms, of all 
 the acres of the surface of Scotland, seventeen out of 
 nineteen are in the possession of 2,583 persons ; and of the 
 other — his return shows that there are 132,000 pro- 
 prietors, but the whole of the rest of them — the whole of 
 the rest of the population do not possess more than the 
 largest proprietor in Scotland, and do not possess more 
 than one-fourth of an acre each. In point of fact, one 
 proprietor in Scotland holds nearly as much land as 
 3,000,000 of its population.
 
 The Land Question 191 
 
 Now I want to ask you how this comes about ? I 
 have given you Scotland ; I will give you a fact with 
 regard to Ireland. About a fortnight ago there was a 
 letter in the Times from Mr. Fitzgerald, well known as 
 the Knight of Kerry, a very respectable gentleman, 
 whom I have had the pleasure of meeting many years 
 ago. Mr. Fitzgerald wrote a letter to the Times in 
 defence of the proprietors of land in Ireland, who are 
 being attacked, as you know, constantly on the subject 
 of tenure and the subject of rent ; and he says that in 
 Ireland there are 6,000 * proprietors and 600,000 occu- 
 piers. Well, if there be only 2,583 persons in Scotland 
 to seventeen-nineteenths of the soil, and if there be only 
 6,000 proprietors in Ireland, which is almost all the 
 extent of Scotland, it would appear that the statement 
 which Lord Derby says that Mr. Mill and I had 
 endorsed cannot be very far from the truth. But if we 
 take England — England and Wales — the acreage is 
 about equal to Scotland and Ireland united, and if in 
 England and Wales land be no more divided than it is 
 in Scotland— I am not going to say it is not, because I 
 believe it is, owing to the greater population and the 
 greater wealth — but if the land in England and Wales 
 were no more divided than it is in Scotland, then seven- 
 teen-nineteenths of the whole of the surface of England 
 and Wales would be in possession of 5,166 persons. 
 And take the whole proprietorship of Ireland as given 
 by Mr. Fitzgerald, and take seventeen-nineteenths of 
 Scotland the same proportion of England, and it would 
 leave us with 13,749 proprietors of the soil in the United 
 Kingdom. When we are talking of proprietors of the 
 soil we are not speaking of the man who owns a few 
 yards or a few roods or a quarter of an acre of land, 
 upon which his house stands, but we are speaking of 
 those who are occupying and cultivating the land, or 
 who are letting it to others to occupy and cultivate ; and 
 we are speaking of the political power which has been 
 for generations the greatest in this country, which is 
 enormous now, and which, whenever it chooses to act in 
 
 1 Mr. Fitzgerald understated the number of proprietors in 
 Ireland, and subsequently corrected his mistake.
 
 192 B right's Speeches 
 
 Parliament, in spite of the household suffrage in your 
 boroughs, bears down all your opinions and carries any 
 measure which it thinks necessary for its own interest. 
 
 Now, I must ask you a question, which it would be 
 well if Lord Derby would endeavour to answer. My 
 question is — is there not something strange in this par- 
 tition of the soil I have described to you ? Remember 
 that property in the soil is the most universal of any 
 property in the country. You cannot stand anywhere 
 but that you are upon it. It is the most solid of any 
 property in the country ; the most certain as a posses- 
 sion and an investment ; it is more desired by all classes 
 of people than any other kind of property in the country ; 
 and it is the foundation of all other property, yet the 
 people — and I use the term advisedly — are shut out, and 
 a handful of men are the possessors, as I have shown 
 you, of at least seventeen-nineteenths of it. Do not 
 suppose that I am blaming any of these men ; not in 
 the least. They have had nothing to do with making 
 any law, or, purposely, of any custom which has led to 
 this state of things. They are, in their circumstances, 
 living as honourably, and acting, probably, as well as 
 possessors of property in any other station of life. But 
 I maintain that there is a cause, and that cause is to be 
 found in the state of our law and in customs which have 
 arisen from and are supported by the law. 
 
 May I ask your attention to one argument that has 
 always appeared to me to have great force ? Suppose 
 there were no law of Parliament to interfere with the 
 possession of land. You can see at once that there are 
 natural causes which promote accumulation and natural 
 causes which promote dispersion. Of the natural 
 causes which promote accumulation, you would say, for 
 example, the desire to possess land, which appears to be 
 universal, the certain security which it gives to property 
 and to investment, the social position which the posses- 
 sion of land gives, more or less, in almost every country, 
 and the charm which there is in country life. Dr. John- 
 son, I think, recommended everybody in delicate health 
 to take a walk of two miles every morning before break- 
 fast, and he added a very good piece of advice, if it could
 
 The Land Question 193 
 
 only be followed — that he should take a walk on his own 
 land. If there are these forces of accumulation, there are 
 also forces of dispersion, and the greatest and the chief of 
 these is death. The death of the possessors, as a matter 
 of course, in almost every kind of property — and in this, 
 if it were not for the law— would tend necessarily in 
 some degree to the dispersion of the property. The 
 extravagance of the owner, his folly and his vice, tend 
 also to dispersion ; the desire for change of locality, the 
 desire for change of investment. Thus, you see, there 
 are natural forces at work which cause or promote the 
 accumulation of land, and natural forces which as cer- 
 tainly cause and promote the dispersion of land. What 
 we are arguing for is this — that these forces should be 
 allowed to work naturally and freely, and that the law 
 should not in any way interfere with them, but that land 
 should change just as easily, and should go into the 
 possession of other people by that change, as any other 
 kind of property which men possess. And the result of 
 such change in the law would be that land, as a whole, 
 would find itself always in the possession of that class 
 and those classes of the population which would do the 
 best for the land itself and for the people who dwell 
 upon it. 
 
 I have read to you the statement of Lord Derby that, 
 in his opinion, there is no obstacle in our law to make 
 the gratification which comes from the possession of 
 land either impossible or difficult. In answer to that I 
 will read to you an extract from a work by a lawyer 
 quite competent to give an opinion on this question, and 
 I shall leave his answer as a complete reply to the ques- 
 tion of Lord Derby. The passage I am just going to 
 read to you I have extracted from a work called " The 
 Social Condition and Education of the People in 
 England and Europe." It was written twenty years 
 ago by Mr. Joseph Kay, who is a Queen's Counsel, and 
 most competent to give an opinion on this question. 
 He says : 
 
 " These laws were passed, were framed, and have 
 been retained for the express purpose of keeping the 
 land in the hands of a few proprietors, and depriving the 
 
 N
 
 194 Bright's Speeches 
 
 peasants and small shopkeepers of any part of it and of 
 the influence which its possession confers, and of sup- 
 porting a great landed proprietary class, in order to 
 uphold the system of aristocratic Government, and to 
 give greater strength and stability to the Crown. It 
 may be stated generally that these laws enable an owner 
 of land, by his settlement or will, so to affect his estate 
 that it cannot possibly be sold, in many cases, for about 
 fifty years, and in some cases for sixty, seventy, or a 
 hundred years, after the making of the settlement or 
 will." 
 
 Perhaps many persons here may not be aware that 
 this is almost the only country in Europe — I may even 
 say the only country in the world — in which laws of 
 this kind prevail. They exist to some extent in Russia, 
 and in some parts of Austria ; but in Germany, Hol- 
 land, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, 
 France, and the United States these laws are abolished, 
 and every person there can sell or dispose of his land 
 during his own life. If he dies without a will the law 
 divides his land equally between his children. The law 
 does not there make one son rich and leave all other 
 sons and daughters poor. What would you think in 
 this country if any rich landowner, having, say, six 
 children, were to doom five of them to ignorance, to 
 shut them out from education, from the training belong- 
 ing to their position in life, and should give that train- 
 ing and education only to one child ? But it would be 
 no more monstrous than that he should shut them all 
 out from his property, and give the whole of it to the one 
 child. And yet such is our law, such is the custom of 
 the country, based, I will say, upon the most immoral 
 principle which law has ever sanctioned. What we 
 ask is this, for freedom of bequest, not for a forced par- 
 tition of land. We ask that the land shall be the 
 absolute property of each succeeding generation of men. 
 And what are the results of our system ? That our 
 tenantry are less independent, probably, than any other 
 tenantry in the world ; and our agricultural labourers, 
 as you know, are, and have been, the most abject and 
 most hopeless class of our labouring population. The
 
 The Land Question 195 
 
 repeal of the Corn Laws did not leave them untouched 
 by its beneficent hand, for I believe that the wages of 
 agricultural labour throughout this country have risen 
 certainly more than 50 per cent, during the last thirty 
 years under the operation of that great change in the law 
 which the present Prime Minister and his party declared 
 was to ruin the land, and especially to beggar the 
 labourer. But although the labourer is better off than 
 he was then, still I am obliged to admit what has been 
 said of him by a paper that I have never before had to 
 quote with approval — I speak of the Saturday Review. 
 I recollect two or three years ago reading an article in 
 the Saturday Review on this question of the land, and I 
 noticed an observation in it so striking and remarkable 
 that I could not forget it. The writer said that if our 
 agricultural system be a paternal system, our agri- 
 cultural labourer is its disinherited child. 
 
 But the country gentlemen and Lord Derby and his 
 friends are perhaps not aware of this fact — that refusal 
 to come to some just arrangement on this question 
 induces men to turn their eyes in directions some of 
 which, in my opinion, are not only erroneous, but 
 perilous. I think the proposition that I hear made that 
 nobody should have any profit arising from the growth 
 in value of the land he possesses, or that there should 
 be a probate duty levied upon the land to the amount of 
 10 per cent., and that upon any man's death his property 
 in the soil — one-tenth of all his acreage — shall be taken 
 and divided amongst the peasantry of his neighbour- 
 hood, or that we should have a law of equal partition, 
 such as prevails in many parts of Europe — I think these 
 propositions come naturally from our present law and 
 the present state of things, and to adopt any of them 
 would only be going from one extreme of error and of 
 evil to another. And, therefore, I repudiate the laws 
 we have— the partition laws of some foreign countries 
 — those propositions to which I have referred — I 
 repudiate them all. I say there is a sound and a just 
 principle upon which land should pass from one owner 
 to another, by which all men in each generation, 
 possessing land, shall have the power to deal with it as 
 
 n 2
 
 196 Bright's Speeches 
 
 they like, and that the dead man and the dead hand 
 shall not declare for half a century to come what shall 
 be done with the estate. 
 
 XVI 
 FOREIGN POLICY 
 
 Birmingham, October 29, 1858. 
 
 [This speech was spoken at a banquet given to Mr. Bright in the 
 Town Hall of Birmingham, on the occasion of his first visit to 
 his constituents there. It treats of the Foreign Policy of the 
 country since the Revolution of 1688, and defends the Foreign 
 Policy advocated by Mr. Cobden and himself.] 
 
 The frequent and far too complimentary manner in 
 which my name has been mentioned to-night, and the 
 most kind way in which you have received me, have 
 placed me in a position somewhat humiliating, and 
 really painful ; for to receive laudation which one feels 
 one cannot possibly have merited is much more painful 
 than to be passed by in a distribution of commendation 
 to which possibly one might lay some claim. If one- 
 twentieth part of what has been said is true, if I am 
 entitled to any measure of your approbation, I may 
 begin to think that my public career and my opinions 
 are not so un-English and so anti-national as some of 
 those who profess to be the best of our public instructors 
 have sometimes assumed. How, indeed, can I, any 
 more than any of you, be un-English and anti-national ? 
 YY as I not born upon the same soil ? Do I not come of 
 the same English stock ? Are not my family committed 
 irrevocably to the fortunes of this country ? Is not 
 whatever property I may have depending as much as 
 yours is depending upon the good government of our 
 common fatherland ? Then how shall any man dare to 
 say to any one of his countrymen, because he happens 
 to hold a different opinion on questions of great public 
 policy, that therefore he is un-English, and is to be 
 condemned as anti-national ? There are those who 
 would assume that between my countrymen and me,
 
 Foreign Policy 197 
 
 and between my constituents and me, there has been, 
 and there is now, a great gulf fixed, and that if I cannot 
 pass over to them and to you, they and you can by no 
 possibility pass over to me. 
 
 Now, I take the liberty here, in the presence of an 
 audience as intelligent as can be collected within the 
 limits of this island, and of those who have the strongest 
 claims to know what opinions I do entertain relative to 
 certain great questions of public policy, to assert that I 
 hold no views, that I have never promulgated any views 
 on these controverted questions with respect to which I 
 cannot bring as witnesses in my favour, and as fellow- 
 believers with myself, some of the best and most 
 revered names in the history of English statesmanship. 
 About 120 years ago the Government of this country 
 was directed by Sir Robert Walpole, a great Minister, 
 who for a long period preserved the country in peace, 
 and whose pride it was that during those years he had 
 done so. Unfortunately, towards the close of his career, 
 he was driven by faction into a policy which was the 
 ruin of his political position. Sir Robert Walpole 
 declared, when speaking of the question of war as 
 affecting this country, that nothing could be so foolish, 
 nothing so mad as a policy of war for a trading nation. 
 And he went so far as to say that any peace was better 
 than the most successful war. I do not give you the 
 precise language made use of by the Minister, for I 
 speak only from memory ; but I am satisfied I am not 
 misrepresenting him in what I have now stated. 
 
 Come down fifty years nearer to our own time, and 
 you find a statesman, not long in office, but still strong 
 in the affections of all persons of Liberal principles in 
 this country, and in his time representing fully the 
 sentiments of the Liberal party — Charles James Fox. 
 Mr. Fox, referring to the policy of the Government of 
 his time, which was one of constant interference in the 
 affairs of Europe, and by which the country was 
 continually involved in the calamities of war, said that 
 although he would not assert or maintain the principle 
 that under no circumstances could England have any 
 cause of interference with the affairs of the continent of
 
 198 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Europe, yet he would prefer the policy of positive non- 
 interference and of perfect isolation rather than the 
 constant intermeddling to which our recent policy had 
 subjected us, and which brought so much trouble and 
 suffering upon the country. In this case also I am not 
 prepared to give you his exact words, but I am sure that 
 I fairly describe the sentiments which he expressed. 
 
 Come down fifty years later, and to a time within 
 the recollection of most of us, and you find another 
 statesman, once the most popular man in England, and 
 still remembered in this town and elsewhere with 
 respect and affection. I allude to Earl Grey. When 
 Earl Grey came into office for the purpose of carrying 
 the question of Parliamentary Reform he unfurled the 
 banner of " Peace, retrenchment, and reform," and that 
 sentiment was received in every part of the United 
 Kingdom, by every man who was or had been in favour 
 of Liberal principles, as predicting the advent of a new 
 era which should save his country from many of the 
 calamities of the past. 
 
 Come still nearer, and to a time that seems but the 
 other day, and you find another Minister, second to 
 none of those whom I have mentioned — the late Sir 
 Robert Peel. I had the opportunity of observing the 
 conduct of Sir Robert Peel, from the time when he took 
 office in 1841 ; I watched his proceedings particularly 
 from the year 1843, when I entered Parliament, up to 
 the time of his lamented death ; and during the whole 
 of that period, I venture to say, his principles, if they 
 were to be discovered from his conduct and his speeches, 
 were precisely those which I have held, and which I 
 have always endeavoured to press upon the attention of 
 my countrymen. If you have any doubt upon that 
 point I would refer you to that last, that beautiful, that 
 most solemn speech, which he delivered with an 
 earnestness and a sense of responsibility as if he had 
 known he was leaving a legacy to his country. If you 
 refer to that speech, delivered on the morning of the 
 very day on which occurred the accident which 
 terminated his life, you will find that its whole tenor is 
 in conformity with all the doctrines that I have urged
 
 Foreign Policy 199 
 
 upon my countrymen for years past with respect to our 
 policy in foreign affairs. When Sir Robert Peel went 
 home just before the dawn of day, upon the last occasion 
 that he passed from the House of Commons, the scene 
 of so many of his triumphs, I have heard, from what I 
 think a good authority, that after he entered his own 
 house, he expressed the exceeding relief which he 
 experienced at having delivered himself of a speech 
 which he had been reluctantly obliged to make against 
 a Ministry which he was anxious to support, and he 
 added, if I am not mistaken, " I have made a speech of 
 peace." 
 
 Well, if this be so, if I can give you four names like 
 these, — if there were time I could make a longer list of 
 still eminent, if inferior men, — I should like to know why 
 I, as one of a small party, am to be set down as 
 teaching some new doctrine which it is not fit for my 
 countrymen to hear, and why I am to be assailed in 
 every form of language, as if there was one great 
 department of governmental affairs on which I was 
 incompetent to offer any opinion to my countrymen. 
 But leaving the opinions of individuals, I appeal to this 
 audience, to every man who knows anything of the 
 views and policy of the Liberal party in past years, 
 whether it is not the fact that up to 1832, and indeed to 
 a much later period, probably to the year 1850, those 
 sentiments of Sir Robert Walpole, of Mr. Fox, of Earl 
 Grey, and of Sir Robert Peel, the sentiments which I in 
 humbler mode have propounded, were not received 
 unanimously by the Liberal party as their fixed and 
 unchangeable creed ? And why should they not ? 
 Are they not founded upon reason ? Do not all 
 statesmen know, as you know, that upon peace, and 
 peace alone, can be based the successful industry 
 of a nation, and that by successful industry alone can 
 be created that wealth which, permeating all classes of 
 the people, not confined to great proprietors, great 
 merchants, and great speculators, not running in a 
 stream merely down your principal streets, but turning 
 fertilizing rivulets into every bye-lane and every alley, 
 tends so powerfully to promote the comfort, happiness,
 
 200 Bright's Speeches 
 
 and contentment of a nation ? Do you not know that 
 all progress comes from successful and peaceful 
 industry, and that upon it is based your superstructure 
 of education, of morals, of self-respect among your 
 people, as well as every measure for extending and 
 consolidating freedom in your public institutions ? I 
 am not afraid to acknowledge that I do oppose — that I 
 do utterly condemn and denounce — a great part of the 
 foreign policy which is practised and adhered to by the 
 Government of this country. 
 
 You know, of course, that about 170 years ago there 
 happened in this country what we have always been 
 accustomed to call " a Glorious Revolution " — a Revolu- 
 tion which had this effect : that it put a bit into the 
 mouth of the monarch, so that he was not able of his 
 own free-will to do, and he dared no longer attempt to 
 do, the things which his predecessors had done without 
 fear. But if at the Revolution the monarchy of 
 England was bridled and bitted, at the same time the 
 great territorial families of England were enthroned ; 
 and from that period, until the year 1831 or 1832 — until 
 the time when Birmingham politically became famous 
 • — those territorial families reigned with an almost 
 undisputed sway over the destinies and the industry of 
 the people of these kingdoms. If you turn to the 
 history of England, from the period of the Revolution to 
 the present, you will find that an entirely new policy was 
 adopted, and that while we had endeavoured in former 
 times to keep ourselves free from European complica- 
 tions, we now began to act upon a system of constant 
 entanglement in the affairs of foreign countries, as if 
 there was neither property nor honours, nor anything 
 worth striving for, to be acquired in any other field. 
 The language coined and used then has continued to our 
 day. Lord Somers, in writing for William III, speaks 
 of the endless and sanguinary wars of that period as 
 wars "to maintain the liberties of Europe." There 
 were wars " to support the Protestant interest," and 
 there were many wars to preserve our old friend "the 
 balance of power." 
 
 We have been at war since that time, I believe, with,
 
 Foreign Policy 201 
 
 for, and against every considerable nation in Europe. 
 We fought to put down a pretended French supremacy 
 under Louis XIV. We fought to prevent France and 
 Spain coming under the sceptre of one monarch, 
 although, if we had not fought, it would have been im- 
 possible in the course of things that they should have 
 become so united. We fought to maintain the Italian 
 provinces in connection with the House of Austria. 
 We fought to put down the supremacy of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte ; and the Minister who was employed by this 
 country at Vienna, after the great war, when it was 
 determined that no Bonaparte should ever again sit on 
 the throne of France, was the very man to make an 
 alliance with another Bonaparte for the purpose of 
 carrying on a war to prevent the supremacy of the late 
 Emperor of Russia. So that we have been all round 
 Europe, and across it over and over again, and after a 
 policy so distinguished, so pre-eminent, so long- 
 continued, and so costly, I think we have a fair right — 
 I have, at least — to ask those who are in favour of it to 
 show us its visible result. Europe is not at this 
 moment, so far as I know, speaking of it broadly, and 
 making allowance for certain improvements in its 
 general civilization, more free politically than it was 
 before. The balance of power is like perpetual motion, 
 or any of those impossible things which some men are 
 always racking their brains and spending their time 
 and money to accomplish. 
 
 We all know and deplore that at the present moment 
 a large number of the grown men of Europe are 
 employed, and a large portion of the industry of Europe 
 is absorbed, to provide for, and maintain, the enormous 
 armaments which are now on foot in every considerable 
 Continental State. Assuming, then, that Europe is not 
 much better in consequence of the sacrifices we have 
 made, let us inquire what has been the result in 
 England, because, after all, that is the question which 
 it becomes us most to consider. I believe that I under- 
 state the sum when I say that, in pursuit of this Will- 
 o'-the-wisp (the liberties of Europe and the balance of 
 power), there has been extracted from the industry of
 
 202 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the people of this small island no less an amount than 
 2,000,000,000/. sterling. I cannot imagine how much 
 2,000,000,000/. is, and therefore I shall not attempt to 
 make you comprehend it. I presume it is something like 
 those vast and incomprehensible astronomical distances 
 with which we have been lately made familiar ; but, how- 
 ever familiar, we feel that we do not know one bit more 
 about them than we did before. When I try to think 
 of that sum of 2,000,000,000/., there is a sort of vision 
 passes before my mind's eye. I see your peasant 
 labourer delve and plough, sow and reap, sweat 
 beneath the summer's sun, or grow prematurely old 
 before the winter's blast. I see your noble mechanic, 
 with his manly countenance and his matchless skill, 
 toiling at his bench or his forge. I see one of the 
 workers in our factories in the north, a woman — a girl, 
 it may be — gentle and good, as many of them are, as 
 your sisters and daughters are — I see her intent upon 
 the spindle, whose revolutions are so rapid that the eye 
 fails altogether to detect them, or watching the alternat- 
 ing flight of the unresting shuttle. I turn again to 
 another portion of your population, which, " plunged in 
 mines, forgets a sun was made," and I see the man who 
 brings up from the secret chambers of the earth the 
 elements of the riches and greatness of his country. 
 When I see all this I have before me a mass of produce 
 and of wealth which I am no more able to comprehend 
 than I am that 2,000,000,000/. of which I have spoken, 
 but I behold in its full proportions the hideous error of 
 your Governments, whose fatal policy consumes in 
 some cases a half, never Jess than a third, of all the 
 results of that industry which God intended should 
 fertilize and bless every home in England, but the 
 fruits of which are squandered in every part of the 
 surface of the globe, without producing the smallest 
 good to the people of England. 
 
 We have, it is true, some visible results that are of a 
 more positive character. We have that which some 
 people call a great advantage — the National Debt — a 
 debt which is now so large that the most prudent, the 
 most economical, and the most honest have given up
 
 Foreign Policy 203 
 
 all hope, not of its being paid off, but of its being 
 diminished in amount. We have, too, taxes which 
 have been during many years so onerous that there have 
 been times when the patient beasts of burden threatened 
 to revolt — so onerous that it has been utterly impossible 
 to levy them with any kind of honest equality, according 
 to the means of the people to pay them. We have that, 
 moreover, which is a standing wonder to all foreigners 
 who consider our condition — an amount of apparently 
 immovable pauperism, which to strangers is wholly 
 irreconcileable with the fact that we, as a nation, 
 produce more of what should make us all comfortable 
 than is produced by any other nation of similar 
 numbers on the face of the globe. Let us likewise 
 remember that during the period of those great and so- 
 called glorious contests on the continent of Europe 
 every description of home reform was not only delayed 
 but actually crushed out of the minds of the great bulk 
 of the people. There can be no doubt whatever that in 
 1793 England was about to realize political changes 
 and reforms such as did not appear again until 1830; 
 and during the period of that war, which now almost all 
 men agree to have been wholly unnecessary, we were 
 passing through a period which may be described as the 
 dark age of English politics ; when there was no more 
 freedom to write or speak, or politically to act, than 
 there is now in the most despotic country of Europe. 
 
 But, it may be asked, did nobody gain ? If Europe 
 is no better, and the people of England have been so 
 much worse, who has benefited by the new system of 
 foreign policy ? What has been the fate of those who 
 were enthroned at the Revolution, and whose supremacy 
 has been for so long a period undisputed among us ? 
 Mr. Kinglake, the author of an interesting book on 
 Eastern Travel, describing the habits of some ac- 
 quaintances that he made in the Syrian Deserts, says 
 that the jackals of the Desert follow their prey in 
 families like the place-hunters of Europe. I will 
 reverse, if you like, the comparison, and say that the great 
 territorial families of England, which were enthroned 
 at the Revolution, have followed their prey like the
 
 204 Bright's Speeches 
 
 jackals of the Desert. Do you not observe at a glance 
 that, from the time of William III, by reason of the 
 foreign policy which I denounce, wars have been 
 multiplied, taxes increased, loans made, and the sums of 
 money which every year the Government has to expend 
 augmented, and that so the patronage at the disposal of 
 Ministers must have increased also, and the families 
 who were enthroned and made powerful in the legisla- 
 tion and administration of the country must have had 
 the first pull at, and the largest profit out of, that 
 patronage ? There is no actuary in existence who can 
 calculate how much of the wealth, of the strength, of the 
 supremacy of the territorial families of England has 
 been derived from an unholy participation in the fruits 
 of the industry of the people, which have been wrested 
 from them by every device of taxation, and* squandered 
 in every conceivable crime of which a Government 
 could possibly be guilty. 
 
 The more you examine this matter the more you will 
 come to the conclusion which I have arrived at, that 
 this foreign policy, this regard for " the liberties of 
 Europe," this care at one time for " the Protestant 
 interests," this excessive love for the " balance of 
 power," is neither more nor less than a gigantic system 
 of out-door relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain. 
 [Great laughter.] I observe that you receive that 
 declaration as if it were some new and important 
 discovery. In 1815, when the great war with France 
 was ended, every Liberal in England, whose politics, 
 whose hopes, and whose faith had not been crushed out 
 of him by the tyranny of the time of that war, was 
 fully aware of this, and openly admitted it, and up to 
 1832, and for some years afterwards, it was the fixed 
 and undoubted creed of the great Liberal party. 
 But somehow all is changed. We who stand upon 
 the old landmarks, who walk in the old paths, who 
 would conserve what is wise and prudent, are hustled 
 and shoved about as if we were come to turn the 
 world upside down. The change which has taken 
 place seems to confirm the opinion of a lamented 
 friend of mine, who, not having succeeded in all his
 
 Foreign Policy 205 
 
 hopes, thought that men made no progress whatever, 
 but went round and round like a squirrel in a cage. 
 The idea is now so general that it is our duty to 
 meddle everywhere, that it really seems as if we had 
 pushed the Tories from the field, expelling them by 
 our competition. 
 
 I should like to lay before you a list of the treaties 
 which we have made, and of the responsibilities under 
 which we have laid ourselves with respect to the various 
 countries of Europe. I do not know where such an 
 enumeration is to be found, but I suppose it would be 
 possible for antiquaries and men of investigating minds 
 to dig them out from the recesses of the Foreign 
 Office, and perhaps to make some of them intelligible to 
 the country. I believe, however, that if we go to the 
 Baltic we shall find that we have a treaty to defend 
 Sweden, and the only thing which Sweden agrees to do 
 in return is not to give up any portion of her territories 
 to Russia. Coming down a little south, we have a 
 treaty which invites us, enables us, and perhaps, if we 
 acted fully up to our duty with regard to it, would 
 compel us to interfere in the question between Denmark 
 and the Duchies. If I mistake not, we have a treaty 
 which binds us down to the maintenance of the little 
 kingdom of Belgium, as established after its separation 
 from Holland. We have numerous treaties with 
 France. We are understood to be bound by treaty to 
 maintain constitutional government in Spain and 
 Portugal. If we go round into the Mediterranean we 
 find the litttle kingdom of Sardinia, to which we have 
 lent some millions of money, and with which we have 
 entered into important treaties for preserving the 
 balance of power in Europe. If we go beyond the 
 kingdoms of Italy, and cross the Adriatic, we come to 
 the small kingdom of Greece, against which we have a 
 nice account that will never be settled ; w T hile we have 
 engagements to maintain that respectable but diminu- 
 tive country under its present constitutional govern- 
 ment. Then, leaving the kingdom of Greece, we pass 
 up the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and from 
 Greece to the Red Sea, wherever the authority of the
 
 206 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Sultan is more or less admitted, the blood and the 
 industry of England are pledged to the permanent 
 sustentation of the " independence and integrity " of the 
 Ottoman Empire. 
 
 I confess that as a citizen of this country, wishing 
 to live peaceably among my fellow-countrymen, and 
 wishing to see my countrymen free, and able to enjoy 
 the fruits of their labour, I protest against a system 
 which binds us in all these networks and complications, 
 from which it is impossible that we can gain one single 
 atom of advantage for this country. It is not all glory, 
 after all. Glory may be worth something, but it is not 
 always glory. We have had within the last few years 
 despatches from Vienna and from St. Petersburg, which, 
 if we had not deserved them, would have been very offen- 
 sive and not a little insolent. We have had the Ambas- 
 sador of the Queen expelled summarily from Madrid, and 
 we have had an Ambassador driven almost with ignominy 
 from Washington. We have blockaded Athens for a 
 claim which was known to be false. We have quarrelled 
 with Naples, for we chose to give advice to Naples, 
 which was not received in the submissive spirit expected 
 from her, and our Minister was therefore withdrawn. 
 Not three years ago, too, we seized a considerable 
 kingdom in India, with which our Government had but 
 recently entered into the most solemn treaty, which 
 every lawyer in England and in Europe, I believe, 
 would consider binding before God and the world. 
 We deposed its monarch ; we committed a great 
 immorality and a great crime, and we have reaped an 
 almost instantaneous retribution in the most gigantic and 
 sanguinary revolt which probably any nation ever made 
 against its conquerors. Within the last few years we 
 have had two wars with a great Empire, which we are 
 told contains at least one-third of the whole human 
 race. The first war was called, and appropriately 
 called, the Opium War. No, man, I believe, with a 
 spark of morality in his composition, no man who cares 
 anything for the opinion of his fellow-countrymen, has 
 dared to justify that war. The war which has just been 
 concluded, if it has been concluded, had its origin in the
 
 Foreign Policy 207 
 
 first war ; for the enormities committed in the first war 
 are the foundation of the implacable hostility which it 
 is said the inhabitants of Canton bear to all persons 
 connected with the English name. Yet, though we 
 have these troubles in India — a vast country which we 
 do not know how to govern — and a war with China — a 
 country with which, though everybody else can remain 
 at peace, we cannot — such is the inveterate habit of 
 conquest, such is the insatiable lust of territory, such is, 
 in my view, the depraved, unhappy state of opinion of 
 the country on this subject, that there are not a few 
 persons, Chambers of Commerce to wit, in different 
 parts of the kingdom (though I am glad to say it has 
 not been so with the Chamber of Commerce at 
 Birmingham), who have been urging our Government 
 to take possession of a province of the greatest island in 
 the Eastern seas ; a possession which must at once 
 necessitate increased estimates and increased taxation, 
 and which would probably lead us into merciless and 
 disgraceful wars with the half-savage tribes who inhabit 
 that island. 
 
 I will not dwell upon that question. The gentleman 
 who is principally concerned in it is at this moment, as 
 you know, stricken down with affliction, and I am 
 unwilling to enter here into any considerable discussion 
 of the case which he is urging upon the public ; but I 
 say that we have territory enough in India ; and if we 
 have not troubles enough there, if we have not difficulties 
 enough in China, if we have not taxation enough, by all 
 means gratify your wishes for more ; but I hope that 
 whatever may be the shortcomings of the Government 
 with regard to any other questions in which we are all 
 interested — and may they be few ! — they will shut their 
 eyes, they will turn their backs obstinately from 
 adding in this mode, or in any mode, to the English 
 possessions in the East. I suppose that if any ingenious 
 person were to prepare a large map of the world, as far 
 as it is known, and were to mark upon it, in any colour 
 that he liked, the spots where Englishmen have fought 
 and English blood has been poured forth, and the 
 treasure of England squandered, scarcely a country,
 
 208 Bright's Speeches 
 
 scarcely a province of the vast expanse of the habitable 
 globe would be thus undistinguished. 
 
 Perhaps there are in this room, I am sure there are in 
 the country, many persons who hold a superstitious 
 traditionary belief that, somehow or other, our vast 
 trade is to be attributed to what we have done in this 
 way, that it is thus we have opened markets and 
 advanced commerce, that English greatness depends 
 upon the extent of English conquests and English 
 military renown. But I am inclined to think that, with 
 the exception of Australia, there is not a single 
 dependency of the Crown which, if we come to reckon 
 what it has cost in war and protection, would not be 
 found to be a positive loss to the people of this country. 
 Take the United States, with which we have such an 
 enormous and constantly increasing trade. The wise 
 statesmen of the last generation, men whom your 
 school histories tell you were statesmen, serving under 
 a monarch who they tell you was a patriotic monarch, 
 spent 130,000,000/. of the fruits of the industry of the 
 people in a vain — happily a vain — endeavour to retain 
 the colonies of the United States in subjection to the 
 Monarchy of England. Add up the interest of that 
 130,000,000/. for all this time, and how long do you 
 think it will be before there will be a profit on the trade 
 with the United States which will repay the enormous 
 sum we invested in a war to retain those States as 
 colonies of this Empire ? It never will be paid off. 
 Wherever you turn, you will find that the opening of 
 markets, developing of new countries, introducing cotton 
 cloth with cannon balls, are vain, foolish, and wretched 
 excuses for wars, and ought not to be listened to for a 
 moment by any man who understands the multiplica- 
 tion table, or who can do the simplest sum in arith- 
 metic. 
 
 Since the " Glorious Revolution," since the enthron- 
 ization of the great Norman territorial families they 
 have spent in wars, and we have worked for, about 
 2,000,000,000/. The interest on that is 100,000,000/. 
 per annum, which alone, to say nothing of the principal 
 sum, is three or four times as much as the whole
 
 Foreign Policy 209 
 
 amount of your annual export trade from that time to 
 this. Therefore, if war has provided you with a trade, 
 it has been at an enormous cost ; but I think it is by no 
 means doubtful that your trade would have been no 
 less in amount and no less profitable had peace and 
 justice been inscribed on your flag instead of conquest 
 and the love of military renown. But even in this 
 year, 1858 — we have got a long way into the century — 
 we find that within the last seven years our public debt 
 has greatly increased. Whatever be the increase of our 
 population, of our machinery, of our industry, of our 
 wealth, still our national debt goes on increasing. 
 Although we have not a foot more territory to conserve, 
 or an enemy in the world who dreams of attacking us, 
 we find that our annual military expenses during the 
 last twenty years have risen from 12,000,000/. to 
 22,000,000/. 
 
 Some people believe that it is a good thing to pay 
 a great revenue to the State. Even so eminent a 
 man as Lord John Russell is not without a delusion 
 of this sort. Lord John Russell, as you have heard, 
 while speaking of me in flattering and friendly terms, 
 says he is unfortunately obliged to differ from me 
 frequently ; therefore, I suppose, there is no particular 
 harm in my saying that I am sometimes obliged to 
 differ from him. Some time ago he was a great star in 
 the northern hemisphere, shining, not with unaccustomed, 
 but with his usual brilliancy at Liverpool. He made a 
 speech, in which there was a great deal to be admired, 
 to a meeting composed, it was said, to a great extent of 
 working-men ; and in it he stimulated them to a feeling 
 of pride in the greatness of their country and in being 
 citizens of a State which enjoyed a revenue of 
 100,000,000/. a year, which included the revenues of the 
 United Kingdom and of British India. But I think it 
 would have been far more to the purpose if he could 
 have congratulated the working-men of Liverpool on 
 this vast Empire being conducted in an orderly manner, 
 on its laws being well administered and well obeyed, its 
 shores sufficiently defended, its people prosperous and 
 happy, on a revenue of 20,000,000/. The State, indeed, 
 
 o
 
 210 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of which Lord John Russell is a part, may enjoy a 
 revenue of 100,000,000/., but I am afraid the working- 
 men can only be said to enjoy it in the sense in which 
 men not very choice in their expressions say that for a 
 long time they have enjoyed " very bad health." 
 
 I am prepared to admit that it is a subject of 
 congratulation that there is a people so great, so free, 
 and so industrious, that it can produce a sufficient 
 income out of which 100,000,000/. a year, if need 
 absolutely were, could be spared for some great and 
 noble object ; but it is not a thing to be proud of that 
 our Government should require us to pay that enormous 
 sum for the simple purposes of government and defence. 
 Nothing . can by any possibility tend more to the 
 corruption of a government than enormous revenues. 
 We have heard lately of instances of certain joint- 
 stock institutions with very great capital collapsing 
 suddenly, bringing disgrace upon their managers, and 
 ruin upon hundreds of families. A great deal of that 
 has arisen, not so much from intentional fraud, as from 
 the fact that weak and incapable men have found 
 themselves tumbling about in an ocean of banknotes 
 and gold, and they appear to have lost all sight of 
 where it came from, to whom it belonged, and whether 
 it was possible by any maladministration ever to come 
 to an end of it. That is absolutely what is done by 
 Governments. You have read in the papers lately some 
 accounts of the proceedings before a Commission 
 appointed to inquire into alleged maladministration with 
 reference to the supply of clothing to the army, but if 
 anybody had said anything in the time of the late 
 Government about any such maladministration, there is 
 not one of those great statesmen, of whom we are told 
 we ought always to speak with so much reverence, who 
 would not have got up and declared that nothing could 
 be more admirable than the system of book-keeping at 
 Weedon, nothing more economical than the manner in 
 which the War Department spent the money provided 
 by public taxation. But we know that it is not so. I 
 have heard a gentleman — one who is as competent as any 
 man in England to give an opinion about it — a man of
 
 Foreign Policy 2 1 1 
 
 business, and not surpassed by any one as a man of 
 business, declare, after a long examination of the details 
 of the question, that he would undertake to do every- 
 thing that is done not only for the defence of the 
 country, but for many other things which are done by 
 your navy, and which are not necessary for that 
 purpose, for half the annual cost that is voted in the 
 estimates ! 
 
 I think the expenditure of these vast sums, and 
 especially of those which we spend for military purposes, 
 leads us to adopt a defiant and insolent tone towards 
 foreign countries. We have the freest press in Europe, 
 and the freest platform in Europe, but every man who 
 writes an article in a newspaper, and every man who 
 stands on a platform, ought to do it under a solemn 
 sense of responsibility. Every word he writes, every 
 word I utter, passes with a rapidity of which our fore- 
 fathers were utterly ignorant, to the very ends of the 
 earth ; the words become things and acts, and they 
 produce on the minds of other nations effects which a 
 man may never have intended. Take a recent case ; 
 take the case of France. I am not expected to defend, 
 and I shall certainly not attack, the present Government 
 of France. The instant that it appeared in the present 
 shape, the Minister of England conducting your foreign 
 affairs, speaking ostensibly for the Cabinet, for his 
 Sovereign, and for the English nation, offered his 
 congratulations, and the support of England was at 
 once accorded to the re-created French Empire. Soon 
 after this an intimate alliance was entered into between 
 the Queen of England, through her Ministers, and the 
 Emperor of the French. I am not about to defend the 
 policy which flowed from that alliance, nor shall I take 
 up your time by making any attack upon it. An 
 alliance was entered into, and a war was entered into. 
 English and French soldiers fought on the same field, 
 and they suffered, I fear, from the same neglect. They 
 now lie buried on the bleak heights of the Crimea, and 
 except by their mothers, who do not soon forget their 
 children, I suppose they are mostly forgotten. I have 
 never heard it suggested that the French Government 
 
 o 2
 
 212 Bright's Speeches 
 
 did not behave with the most perfect honour to this 
 Government and this country all through these grave 
 transactions ; but I have heard it stated by those who 
 must know, that nothing could be more honourable, 
 nothing more just, than the conduct of the French 
 Emperor to this Government throughout the whole of 
 that struggle. More recently, when the war in China 
 was begun by a Government which I have condemned 
 and denounced in the House of Commons, the Emperor 
 of the French sent his ships and troops to co-operate 
 with us, but I never heard that anything was done 
 there to create a suspicion of a feeling of hostility on his 
 part towards us. The Emperor of the French came to 
 London, and some of those powerful organs of the 
 press who have since taken the line of which I am 
 complaining, did all but invite the people of London to 
 prostrate themselves under the wheels of the chariot 
 which conveyed along our streets the revived monarchy 
 of France. The Queen of England went to Paris, and 
 was she not received there with as much affection and 
 as much respect as her high position and her honourable 
 character entitled her to ? 
 
 What has occurred since ? If there was a momentary 
 unpleasantness, I am quite sure that every impartial 
 man will agree that, under the peculiarly irritating 
 circumstances of the time, there was at least as much 
 forbearance shown on one side of the Channel as on 
 the other. Then we have had much said lately about 
 a naval fortification recently completed in France, 
 which has been more than one hundred years in pro- 
 gress, which was not devised by the present Emperor 
 of the French. For one hundred years great sums had 
 been spent on it, and at last, like every other great 
 work, it was brought to an end. The English Queen 
 and others were invited over, and many went who were 
 not invited. And yet in all this we are told that there 
 is something to create extreme alarm and suspicion ; 
 we, who have never fortified any places ; we, who have 
 not a greater than Sebastopol at Gibraltar ; we, who 
 have not an impregnable fortress at Malta, who have 
 not spent the fortune of a nation almost in the Ionian
 
 Foreign Policy 213 
 
 Islands ; we, who are doing nothing at Alderney ; we 
 are to take offence at the fortifications of Cherbourg ! 
 There are few persons who at some time or other have 
 not been brought into contact with a poor unhappy 
 fellow-creature who has some peculiar delusion or sus- 
 picion pressing on his mind. I recollect a friend of 
 mine going down from Derby to Leeds in the train 
 with a very quiet and respectable-looking gentleman 
 sitting opposite to him. They had both been staying 
 at the Midland Hotel, and they began talking about it. 
 All at once the gentleman said, " Did you notice any- 
 thing particular about the bread at breakfast ?" " No," 
 said my friend, "I did not." "Oh! but I did," said 
 the poor gentleman, " and I am convinced there was 
 an attempt made to poison me, and it is a very curious 
 thing that I never go to an hotel without I discover 
 some attempt to do me mischief." The unfortunate 
 man was labouring under one of the greatest calamities 
 which can befall a human creature. But what are we 
 to say of a nation which lives under a perpetual delusion 
 that it is about to be attacked — a nation which is the 
 most combined on the face of the earth, with little less 
 than 30,000,000 of people all united under a Govern- 
 ment which, though we intend to reform it, we do not 
 the less respect it, and which has mechanical power 
 and wealth to which no other country offers any 
 parallel ? There is no causeway to Britain ; the free 
 waves of the sea flow day and night for ever round her 
 shores, and yet there are people going about with whom 
 this hallucination is so strong that they do not merely 
 discover it quietly to their friends, but they write it 
 down in double-leaded columns, in leading articles, — 
 nay, some of them actually get up on platforms and 
 proclaim it to hundreds and thousands of their fellow- 
 countrymen. I should like to ask you whether these 
 delusions are to last for ever, whether this policy is to 
 be the perpetual policy of England, whether these 
 results are to go on gathering and gathering until there 
 come, as come there must inevitably, some dreadful 
 catastrophe on our country ? 
 
 I should like to-night, if I could, to inaugurate one
 
 214 Bright's Speeches 
 
 of the best and holiest revolutions that ever took place 
 in this country, We have had a dozen revolutions 
 since some of us were children. We have had one 
 revolution in which you had a great share, a great 
 revolution of opinion on the question of the suffrage. 
 Does it not read like madness that men, thirty years 
 ago, were frantic at the idea of the people of Birming- 
 ham having a 10I. franchise ? Does it not seem some- 
 thing like idiotcy to be told that a banker in Leeds, 
 when it was proposed to transfer the seats of one 
 rotten borough to the town of Leeds, should say (and 
 it was repeated in the House of Commons on his 
 authority) that if the people of Leeds had the fran- 
 chise conferred upon them it would not be possible 
 to keep the bank doors open with safety, and that 
 he should remove his business to some quiet place 
 out of danger from the savage race that peopled 
 that town ? But now all confess that the people are 
 perfectly competent to have votes, and nobody dreams 
 of arguing that the privilege will make them less 
 orderly. 
 
 Take the question of colonial government. Twenty 
 years ago the government of our colonies was a huge 
 job. A small family party in each, in connection with 
 the Colonial Office, ruled our colonies. We had then 
 discontent, and, now and then, a little wholesome 
 insurrection, especially in Canada. The result was 
 that we have given up the colonial policy which had 
 hitherto been held sacred, and since that time not only 
 have our colonies greatly advanced in wealth and 
 material resources, but no parts of the Empire are 
 more tranquil and loyal. 
 
 Take also the question of Protection. Not thirty 
 years ago, but twelve years ago, there was a great 
 party in Parliament, led by a Duke in one House, and 
 by the son and brother of a Duke in the other, which 
 declared that utter ruin must come, not only on the 
 agricultural interest, but upon the manufactures and 
 commerce of England, if we departed from our old 
 theories upon this subject of Protection. They told us
 
 Foreign Policy 215 
 
 that the labourer — the unhappy labourer — of whom it 
 may be said in this country, — 
 
 " Here landless labourers hopeless toil and strive, 
 But taste no portion of the sweets they hive," 
 
 — that the labourer was to be ruined ; that is, that the 
 paupers were to be pauperized. These gentlemen were 
 overthrown. The plain, honest, common sense of the 
 country swept away their cobweb theories, and they 
 are gone. What is the result? From 1846 to 1857 
 we have received into this country of grain of all kinds, 
 including flour, maize, or Indian corn — all objects 
 heretofore not of absolute prohibition, but which were 
 intended to be prohibited until it was not safe for people 
 to be starved any more — not less than an amount equal 
 in value to 224,000,000/. That is equal to 18,700,000/. 
 per annum on the average of twelve years. During 
 that period, too, your home growth has been stimulated 
 to an enormous extent. You have imported annually 
 200,000 tons of guano, and the result has been a pro- 
 portionate increase in the productions of the soil, for 
 200,000 tons of guano will grow an equal weight and 
 value of wheat. With all this, agriculture was never 
 more prosperous, while manufactures were never, at 
 the same time, more extensively exported ; and with 
 all this the labourers, for whom the tears of the Pro- 
 tectionist were shed, have, according to the admission 
 of the most violent of the class, never been in a better 
 state since the beginning of the great French war. 
 
 One other revolution of opinion has been in regard 
 to our criminal law. I have lately been reading a book 
 which I would advise every man to read — the " Life of 
 Sir Samuel Romilly." He tells us in simple language 
 of the almost insuperable difficulties he had to contend 
 with to persuade the Legislature of this country to 
 abolish the punishment of death for stealing from a 
 dwelling-house to the value of 5s., an offence which 
 now is punished by a few weeks' imprisonment. Lords, 
 Bishops, and statesmen opposed these efforts year after 
 year, and there have been some thousands of persons
 
 216 Bright's Speeches 
 
 put to death publicly for offences which are not now 
 punishable with death. Now, every man and woman 
 in the kingdom would feel a thrill of horror if told that 
 a fellow-creature was to be put to death for such a cause. 
 
 These are revolutions in opinion ; and let me tell 
 you that when you accomplish a revolution in opinion 
 upon a great question, when you alter it from bad to 
 good, it is not like charitably giving a beggar 6d. and 
 seeing him no more, but it is a great beneficent act, 
 which affects not merely the rich and the powerful, but 
 penetrates every lane, every cottage in the land, and 
 wherever it goes brings blessings and happiness. It is 
 not from statesmen that these things come. It is not 
 from them that have proceeded these great revolutions 
 of opinion on the questions of Reform, Protection, 
 Colonial Government, and Criminal Law — it was from 
 public meetings such as this, from the intelligence and 
 conscience of the great body of the people who have 
 no interest in wrong, and who never go from the right 
 but by temporary error and under momentary passion. 
 
 It is for you to decide whether our greatness shall be 
 only temporary or whether it shall be enduring. When 
 I am told that the greatness of our country is shown 
 by the 100,000,000/. of revenue produced, may I not 
 also ask how it is that we have 1,100,000 paupers in 
 this kingdom, and why it is that 7,000,000/. should be 
 taken from the industry chiefly of the labouring classes 
 to support a small nation, as it were, of paupers? 
 Since your legislation upon the Corn-laws you have 
 not only had nearly 20,000,000/. of food brought into 
 the country annually, but such an extraordinary 
 increase of trade that your exports are about doubled, 
 and yet I understand that in the year 1856, for I have 
 no later return, there were no less than 1,100,000 
 paupers in the United Kingdom, and the sum raised 
 in poor-rates was not less than 7,200,000/. And that 
 cost of pauperism is not the full amount ; for there 
 is a vast amount of temporary, casual, and vagrant 
 pauperism that does not come in to swell that sum. 
 
 Then do not you well know — I know it, because I 
 live among the population of Lancashire, and I doubt
 
 Foreign Policy 217 
 
 not the same may be said of the population of this city 
 and county — that just above the level of the 1,100,000 
 there is at least an equal number who are ever oscillat- 
 ing between independence and pauperism, who, with a 
 heroism which is not the less heroic because it is secret 
 and unrecorded, are doing their very utmost to main- 
 tain an honourable and independent position before 
 their fellow-men ? While Irish labour, notwithstand- 
 ing the improvement which has taken place in Ireland, 
 is only paid at the rate of about is. a day ; while in the 
 straths and glens of Scotland there are hundreds of 
 shepherd families whose whole food almost consists of 
 oatmeal porridge from day to day, and from week 
 to week ; while these things continue, I say that we 
 have no reason to be self-satisfied and contented with 
 our position ; but that we who are in Parliament and 
 are more directly responsible for affairs, and you who 
 are also responsible, though in a lower degree, are 
 bound by the sacred duty which we owe our country 
 to examine why it is that with all this trade, all this 
 industry, and all this personal freedom, there is still so 
 much that is unsound at the base of our social fabric ? 
 
 Let me direct your attention now to another point, 
 which I never think of without feelings which words 
 would altogether fail to express. You hear constantly, 
 that woman, the helpmate of man, who adorns, dignifies, 
 and blesses our lives, that woman in this country is 
 cheap ; that vast numbers whose names ought to be 
 synonyms for purity and virtue are plunged into pro- 
 fligacy and infamy. But do you not know that you 
 sent 40,000 men to perish on the bleak heights of the 
 Crimea, and that the revolt in India, caused, in part at 
 least, by the grievous iniquity of the seizure of Oude, 
 may tax your country to the extent of 100,000 lives 
 before it is extinguished ; and do you not know that 
 for the 140,000 men thus draughted off and consigned 
 to premature graves, Nature provided in your country 
 140,000 women? If you have taken the men who 
 should have been the husbands of these women, and if 
 you have sacrificed 100,000,000/., which as capital 
 reserved in the country would have been an ample
 
 218 Bright's Speeches 
 
 fund for their employment and for the sustentation of 
 their families, are you not guilty of a great sin in 
 involving yourselves in such a loss of life and of money 
 in war, except on grounds and under circumstances 
 which, according to the opinions of every man in the 
 country, should leave no kind of option whatever for 
 your choice ? 
 
 I know perfectly well the kind of observations which 
 a certain class of critics will make upon this speech. I 
 have been already told by a very eminent newspaper 
 publisher in Calcutta, who, commenting on a speech I 
 made at the close of the session with regard to the 
 condition of India and our future policy in that country, 
 said, that the policy I recommended was intended to 
 strike at the root of the advancement of the British 
 Empire, and that its advancement did not necessarily 
 involve the calamities which I pointed out as likely to 
 occur. My Calcutta critic assured me that Rome 
 pursued a similar policy for a period of eight centuries, 
 and that for those eight centuries she remained great. 
 Now, I do not think that examples taken from pagan, 
 sanguinary Rome, are proper models for the imitation 
 of a Christian country, nor would I limit my hopes of 
 the greatness of England even to the long duration 
 of 800 years. But what is Rome now ? The great 
 city is dead. A poet has described her as "the lone 
 mother of dead empires." Her language even is dead. 
 Her very tombs are empty ; the ashes of her most 
 illustrious citizens are dispersed — 
 
 " The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now." 
 
 Yet I am asked, I, who am one of the legislators of a 
 Christian country, to measure my policy by the policy 
 of ancient and pagan Rome ! 
 
 I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation 
 except it be based upon morality. I do not care for 
 military greatness or military renown. I care for the 
 condition of the people among whom I live. There is 
 no man in England who is less likely to speak irreve- 
 rently of the Crown and Monarchy of England than I 
 am ; but crowns, coronets, mitres, military display, the
 
 Foreign Policy 219 
 
 pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge empire, are, in 
 my view, all trifles light as air, and not worth con- 
 sidering, unless with them you can have a fair share 
 of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the 
 great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, 
 great halls, stately mansions, do not make a nation. 
 The nation in every country dwells in the cottage ; and 
 unless the light of your Constitution can shine there, 
 unless the beauty of your legislation and the excellence 
 of your statesmanship are impressed there on the feel- 
 ings and condition of the people, rely upon it you have 
 yet to learn the duties of government. 
 
 I have not, as you have observed, pleaded that this 
 country should remain without adequate and scientific 
 means of defence. I acknowledge it to be the duty of 
 your statesmen, acting upon the known opinions and 
 principles of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons 
 in the country, at all times, with all possible modera- 
 tion, but with all possible efficiency, to take steps 
 which shall preserve order within and on the confines of 
 your kingdom. But I shall repudiate and denounce 
 the expenditure of every shilling, the engagement of 
 every man, the employment of every ship which has 
 no object but intermeddling in the affairs of other 
 countries, and endeavouring to extend the boundaries 
 of an Empire which is already large enough to satisfy 
 the greatest ambition, and I fear is much too large for 
 the highest statesmanship to which any man has yet 
 attained. 
 
 The most ancient of profane historians has told us 
 that the Scythians of his time were a very warlike 
 people, and that they elevated an old cimeter upon a 
 platform as a symbol of Mars, for to Mars alone, I 
 believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To 
 this cimeter they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, 
 the main wealth of the country, and more costly sacri- 
 fices than to all the rest of their gods. I often ask 
 myself whether we are at all advanced in one respect 
 beyond those Scythians. What are our contributions 
 to charity, to education, to morality, to religion, to 
 justice, and to civil government, when compared with
 
 220 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the wealth we expend in sacrifices to the old cimeter ? 
 Two nights ago I addressed in this hall a vast assembly 
 composed to a great extent of your countrymen who 
 have no political power, who are at work from the 
 dawn of the day to the evening, and who have therefore 
 limited means of informing themselves on these great 
 subjects. Now I am privileged to speak to a some- 
 what different audience. You represent those of your 
 great community who have a more complete education, 
 who have on some points greater intelligence, and in 
 whose hands reside the power and influence of the 
 district. I am speaking, too, within the hearing of 
 those whose gentle nature, whose finer instincts, whose 
 purer minds, have not suffered as some of us have 
 suffered in the turmoil and strife of life. You can 
 mould opinion, you can create political power, — you 
 cannot think a good thought on this subject and com- 
 municate it to your neighbours, — you cannot make 
 these points topics of discussion in your social circles 
 and more general meetings, without affecting sensibly 
 and speedily the course which the Government of your 
 country will pursue. May I ask you, then, to believe, 
 as I do most devoutly believe, that the moral law was 
 not written for men alone in their individual character, 
 but that it was written as well for nations, and for 
 nations great as this of which we are citizens. If 
 nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a 
 penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come 
 at once, it may not come in our lifetime ; but, rely 
 upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a 
 prophet when he says, — 
 
 "The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite, 
 Nor yet doth linger." 
 
 We have experience, we have beacons, we have land- 
 marks enough. We know what the past has cost us, 
 we know how much and how far we have wandered, 
 but we are not left without a guide. It is true we 
 have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thum- 
 mim — those oraculous gems on Aaron's breast — from 
 which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable
 
 Peace 221 
 
 and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us, 
 and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we 
 be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy 
 people. 
 
 XVII 
 PEACE 
 
 Edinburgh, October 13, 1853. 
 
 [This speech was spoken at the Conference of the Peace Society, 
 held at Edinburgh in the autumn of 1S53. The relation of 
 this meeting to the Russian war, then impending, made the 
 gathering more than ordinarily important.] 
 
 It is a great advantage in this country, I think, that we 
 have no want of ample criticism. Whatever we may 
 have said yesterday and to-day will form the subject of 
 criticism, not of the most friendly character, in very 
 many newspapers throughout the United Kingdom. I 
 recollect when we met in Manchester, that papers dis- 
 posed to be friendly, warned us as to the course we 
 were taking, and that the time was ill-chosen for a peace 
 meeting. It was said that the people were excited 
 against France, and were alarmed at their almost total 
 defencelessness, and that there was no use in endeavour- 
 ing to place before them the facts which the peace men 
 offered to their audience. The result showed that they 
 were mistaken, for you will recollect that, while up to 
 that meeting there was a constantly swelling tide of 
 alarm and hostility with regard to France, from the day 
 the Conference was held there was a gradual receding 
 of the tide, that the alarm and apprehension rapidly 
 diminished, and that by the time the House of Commons 
 met in February we were willing to receive from Lord 
 John Russell and other statesmen the most positive 
 assurances that France was not increasing her force, 
 and that there was not the slightest reason to believe 
 that the Government of France entertained anything 
 but the most friendly feeling towards the Government 
 of this country. 
 
 The right time to oppose the errors and prejudices of
 
 222 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the people never comes to the eyes of those writers in 
 the public press who pander to these prejudices. They 
 say, We must not do so and so, we shall embarrass the 
 Government. But rumour says the Government has 
 been pretty well embarrassed already. They say that 
 we shall complicate the question if we interfere ; but it 
 cannot well be more complicated than it is ; for hardly 
 anybody but the peace men can tell how to unravel it. 
 Next, they tell us that we shall impair the harmony of 
 opinion which there appears to be in the country, from 
 the fact of there having been three or four insignificant 
 meetings, by which the Government is to be impelled 
 to more active and energetic measures. Now, what is 
 it that we really want here ? We wish to protest 
 against the maintenance of great armaments in time of 
 peace ; we wish to protest against the spirit which is 
 not only willing for war, but eager for war ; and we 
 wish to protest, with all the emphasis of which we are 
 capable, against the mischievous policy pursued so long 
 by this country, of interfering with the internal affairs 
 of other countries, and thereby leading to disputes, and 
 often to disastrous wars. 
 
 I mentioned last night what it was we were annually 
 spending on our armaments. Admiral Napier says 
 that the hon. Member for the West Riding, who can 
 do everything, had persuaded a feeble Government to 
 reduce the armaments of this country to " nothing." 
 What is " nothing " in the Admiral's estimation ? 
 Fifteen millions a year ! Was all that money thrown 
 away ? We have it in the estimates, we pay it out of 
 the taxes — it is appropriated by Parliament, it sustains 
 your dockyards, pays the wages of your men, and main- 
 tains your ships. Fifteen millions sterling paid in the 
 very year when the Admiral says that my hon. Friend 
 reduced the armaments of the country to nothing ! 
 But take the sums which we spent for the past year in 
 warlike preparations — seventeen millions, and the 
 interest on debt caused by war — twenty-eight millions 
 sterling ; and it amounts to 45,000,000/. What are our 
 whole exports ? Even this year, far the largest year of 
 exports we have ever known, they may amount to
 
 Peace 223 
 
 80,000,000/. Well, then, plant some one at the mouth 
 of every port and harbour in the United Kingdom, and 
 let him take every alternate ship that leaves your rivers 
 and your harbours with all its valuable cargo on board, 
 and let him carry it off as tribute, and it will not 
 amount to the cost that you pay every year for a war, 
 that fifty years ago was justified as much as it is 
 attempted to justify this impending war, and for the 
 preparations which you now make after a peace which 
 has lasted for thirty-eight years. 
 
 Every twenty years — in a nation's life nothing, in a 
 person's life something — every twenty years a thousand 
 millions sterling out of the industry of the hard-work- 
 ing people of this United Kingdom, are extorted, 
 appropriated, and expended to pay for that unnecessary 
 and unjust war, and for the absurd and ruinous expendi- 
 ture which you now incur. A thousand millions every 
 twenty years ! Apply a thousand millions, not every 
 twenty years, but for one period of twenty years, to 
 objects of good in this country, and it would be rendered 
 more like a paradise than anything that history records 
 of man's condition, and would make so great a change 
 in these islands, that a man having seen them as they 
 are now, and seeing them as they might then be, would 
 not recognize them as the same country, nor our popu- 
 lation as the same people. But what do we expend all 
 this for ? Bear in mind that Admirals, and Generals, 
 and statesmen defended that great war, and that your 
 newspapers, with scarcely an exception, were in favour 
 of it, and denounced and ostracized hundreds of good 
 men who dared, as we dare now, to denounce the spirit 
 which would again lead this country into war. We 
 went to war that France should not choose its own 
 Government ; the grand conclusion was that no Bona- 
 parte should sit on the throne of France ; yet France 
 has all along been changing its Government from that 
 time to this, and now we find ourselves with a Bona- 
 parte on the throne of France, and, for anything I know 
 to the contrary, likely to remain there a good while. 
 So far, therefore, for the calculations of our forefathers, 
 and for the results of that enormous expenditure which 
 they have saddled upon us.
 
 224 Bright's Speeches 
 
 We object to these great armaments as provoking a 
 war spirit. I should like to ask, what was the object 
 of the Chobham exhibition ? There were special trains 
 at the disposal of Members of Parliament, to go down 
 to Chobham the one day, and to Spithead the other. 
 What was the use of our pointing to the President of 
 the French Republic two years ago, who is the Emperor 
 now, and saying that he was spending his time at play- 
 ing at soldiers in his great camp at Satory, and in 
 making great circuses for the amusement of his soldiers ? 
 We, too, are getting into the way of playing at soldiers, 
 and camps, and fleets, and the object of this is to raise 
 up in the spirit of the people a feeling antagonistic to 
 peace, and to render the people — the deluded, hard- 
 working, toiling people — satisfied with the extortion of 
 17,000,000/. annually, when, upon the very principles of 
 the men who take it, it might be demonstrated that one- 
 half of the money would be amply sufficient for the 
 purpose to which it is devoted. What observation has 
 been more common during the discussion upon Turkey 
 than this — " Why are we to keep up these great fleets 
 if we are not to use them ? Why have we our 
 Mediterranean fleet lying at Besika Bay, when it might 
 be earning glory, and adding to the warlike renown of 
 the country ?" This is just what comes from the 
 maintenance of great fleets and armies. There grows 
 up an esprit de corps — there grows a passion for these 
 things, a powerful opinion in their favour, that smothers 
 the immorality of the whole thing, and leads the people 
 to tolerate, under those excited feelings, that which, 
 under feelings of greater temperance and moderation, 
 they would know was hostile to their country, as it is 
 opposed to everything which we recognize as the spirit 
 of the Christian religion. 
 
 Then, we are against intervention. Now, this ques- 
 tion of intervention is a most important one, for this 
 reason, that it comes before us sometimes in a form so 
 attractive that it invites us to embrace it, and asks us 
 by all our love of freedom, by all our respect for men 
 struggling for their rights, to interfere in the affairs of 
 some other country. And we find now in this country
 
 Peace 225 
 
 that a great number of those who are calling out 
 loudest for interference are those who, being very 
 liberal in their politics, are bitterly hostile to the des- 
 potism and exclusiveness of the Russian Government. 
 But I should like to ask this meeting what sort of inter- 
 vention we are to have ? There are three kinds — one 
 for despotism, one for liberty ; and you may have an 
 intervention like that now proposed, from a vague sense 
 of danger which cannot be accurately described. What 
 have our interventions been up to this time ? I will 
 come to that of which Admiral Napier spoke by and by. 
 It is not long since we intervened in the case of Spain. 
 The foreign enlistment laws were suspended ; and 
 English soldiers went to join the Spanish legion, and 
 the Government of Spain was fixed in the present 
 Queen of that country ; and yet Spain has the most 
 exclusive tariff against this country in the world, and 
 a dead Englishman is there reckoned little better than 
 a dead dog. Then take the case of Portugal. We 
 interfered, and Admiral Napier was one of those em- 
 ployed in that interference, to place the Queen of 
 Portugal on the throne, and yet she has violated every 
 clause of the charter which she had sworn to the 
 people; and in 1849, under the Government of Lord 
 John Russell, and with Lord Palmerston in the Foreign 
 Office, our fleet entered the Tagus and destroyed the 
 Liberal party, by allowing the Queen to escape from 
 their hands, when they would have driven her to give 
 additional guarantees for liberty ; and from that time 
 to this she has still continued to violate every clause of 
 the charter of the country. Now, let us come to Syria ; 
 what has Admiral Napier said about the Syrian war ? 
 He told us that the English fleet was scattered all about 
 the Mediterranean, and that if the French fleet had 
 come to Cherbourg, and had taken on board 50,000 men 
 and landed them on our coasts, all sorts of things would 
 have befallen us. But how happened it that Admiral 
 Napier and his friends got up the quarrel with the 
 French ? Because we interfered in the Syrian question 
 when we had no business to interfere whatever. The 
 Egyptian Pasha, the vassal of the Sultan, became more 
 
 p
 
 226 Bright's Speeches 
 
 powerful than the Sultan, and threatened to depose him 
 and place himself as monarch upon the throne of Con- 
 stantinople ; and but for England, he would assuredly 
 have done it. Why did we interfere ? What advan- 
 tage was it to us to have a feeble monarch in Constanti- 
 nople, when you might have had an energetic and 
 powerful one in Mehemet Ali ? We interfered, how- 
 ever, and quarrelled with France, although she neither 
 declared war nor landed men upon our coast. France 
 is not a country of savages and banditti. The i\dmiral's 
 whole theory goes upon this, that there is a total want 
 of public morality in France, and that something which 
 no nation in Europe would dare to do, or think of 
 doing, which even Russia would scorn to do, would be 
 done without any warning by the polished, civilized, 
 and intelligent nation across the Channel. 
 
 But if they are the friends of freedom who think we 
 ought to go to war with Russia because Russia is a 
 despotic country, what do you say to the interference 
 with the Roman Republic three or four years ago ? 
 What do you say to Lord John Russell's Government, 
 — Lord Palmerston with his own hand writing the de- 
 spatch, declaring that the Government of her Majesty, 
 the Queen of England, entirely concurred with the 
 Government of the French Republic in believing that 
 it was desirable and necessary to re-establish the Pope 
 upon his throne ? The French army, with the full con- 
 currence of the English Government, crossed over to 
 Italy, invaded Rome, destroyed the Republic, banished 
 its leading men, and restored the Pope ; and on that 
 throne he sits still, maintained only by the army of 
 France. 
 
 My hon. Friend has referred to the time when Russia 
 crossed through the very Principalities we hear so much 
 about, and entered Hungary. I myself heard Lord 
 Palmerston in the House of Commons go out of his 
 way needlessly, but intentionally, to express a sort of 
 approbation of the intervention of Russia in the case of 
 Hungary. I heard him say, in a most unnecessary 
 parenthesis, that it was not contrary to international law, 
 or to the law of Europe, for Russia to send an army
 
 i 
 
 Peace 227 
 
 into Hungary to assist Austria in putting down the 
 Hungarian insurrection. I should like to know whether 
 Hungary had not constitutional rights as sacred as ever 
 any country had — as sacred, surely, as the Sovereign of 
 Turkey can have upon his throne. If it were not con- 
 trary to international law and to the law of Europe for 
 a Russian army to invade Hungary, to suppress there 
 a struggle which called for, and obtained too, the 
 sympathy of every man in favour of freedom in every 
 part of the world, I say, how can it be contrary to 
 international laAv and the law of Europe for Russia to 
 threaten the Sultan of Turkey, and to endeavour to 
 annex Turkey -to the Russian Empire ? 
 
 I want our policy to be consistent. Do not let us 
 interfere now, or concur in or encourage the interference 
 of anybody else, and then get up a hypocritical pretence 
 on some other occasion that we are against interference. 
 If you want war, let it be for something that has at 
 least the features of grandeur and of nobility about it, 
 but not for the miserable, decrepit, moribund Govern- 
 ment which is now enthroned, but which cannot long 
 last, in the city of Constantinople. But Admiral 
 Napier is alarmed lest, if Russia was possessed of 
 Turkey, she would, somehow or other, embrace all 
 Europe — that we all should be in the embrace of the 
 Bear — and we know very well what that is. I believe 
 that is all a vague and imaginary danger ; and I am 
 not for going to war for imaginary dangers. War is 
 much too serious a matter. I recollect when France 
 endeavoured to lay hold on Algeria, it was said that the 
 Mediterranean was about to become a French lake. I 
 do not believe that France is a bit more powerful in 
 possessing it. It requires 100,000 French soldiers to 
 maintain Algeria ; and if a balance-sheet could be 
 shown of what Algeria has cost France, and what 
 France has gained from it, I believe you would have no 
 difficulty whatever in discovering the reason why the 
 French finances show a deficit, and why there is a 
 rumour that another French loan is about to be 
 created. 
 
 But they tell us that if Russia gets to Constantinople, 
 
 p 2
 
 228 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Englishmen will not be able to get to India by the 
 overland journey. Mehemet Ali, even when Admiral 
 Napier was battering down his towns, did not interfere 
 with the carriage of our mails through his territory. 
 We bring our overland mails at present partly through 
 Austria, and partly through France, and the mails from 
 Canada pass through the United States ; and though I 
 do not think there is the remotest possibility or proba- 
 bility of anything of the kind happening, yet I do not 
 think that, in the event of war with these countries, we 
 should have our mails stopped or our persons arrested 
 in passing through these countries. At any rate it 
 would be a much more definite danger that would drive 
 me to incur the ruin, guilt, and suffering of war. 
 
 But they tell us, further, that the Emperor of Russia 
 would get India. That is a still more remote con- 
 tingency. If I were asked as to the probabilities of it, 
 I should say that, judging from our past and present 
 policy in Asia, we are more likely to invade Russia 
 from India than Russia is to invade us in India. The 
 policy we pursue in Asia is much more aggressive, 
 aggrandizing, and warlike than any that Russia has 
 pursued or threatened during our time. But it is just 
 possible that Russia may be more powerful by acquir- 
 ing Turkey. I give the Admiral the benefit of that 
 admission. But I should like to ask whether, even if 
 that be true, it is a sufficient reason for our going to 
 war, and entering on what perhaps may be a long, 
 ruinous, and sanguinary struggle, with a powerful 
 empire like Russia ? 
 
 What is war? I believe that half the people that 
 talk about war have not the slightest idea of what it is. 
 In a short sentence it may be summed up to be the 
 combination and concentration of all the horrors, 
 atrocities, crimes, and sufferings of which human 
 nature on this globe is capable. But what is even a 
 rumour of war ? Is there anybody here who has any- 
 thing in the funds, or who is the owner of any railway 
 stock, or anybody who has a large stock of raw material 
 or manufactured goods ? The funds have recently 
 gone down 10 per cent. I do not say that the fall is all
 
 Peace 229 
 
 on account of this danger of war, but a great propor- 
 tion of it undoubtedly is. A fall of 10 per cent, in the 
 funds is nearly 3o,ooo,ooo/. sterling of value, and rail- 
 way stock having gone down 20 per cent, makes a 
 difference of 60,000,000/. in the value of the railway 
 property of this country. Add the two — 140,000,000/. 
 — and take the diminished prosperity and value of 
 manufactures of all kinds during the last few months, 
 and you will understate the actual loss to the country 
 now if you put it down at 200,000,000/. sterling. But 
 that is merely a rumour of war. That is war a long 
 way off — the small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand 
 — what will it be if it comes nearer and becomes a fact ? 
 And surely sane men ought to consider whether the 
 case is a good one, the ground fair, the necessity clear, 
 before they drag a nation of nearly 30,000,000 of people 
 into a long and bloody struggle, for a decrepit and 
 tottering empire, which all the nations in Europe can- 
 not long sustain. And, mind, war now would take a 
 different aspect from what it did formerly. It is not 
 only that you send out men who submit to be 
 slaughtered, and that you pay a large amount of taxes 
 — the amount of taxes would be but a feeble indication 
 of what you would suffer. Our trade is now much 
 more extensive than it was ; our commerce is more ex- 
 panded, our undertakings are more vast, and war will 
 find you all out at home by withering up the resources 
 of the prosperity enjoyed by the middle and working 
 classes of the country. You would find that war in 
 1853 would be infinitely more perilous and destructive 
 to our country than it has ever yet been at any former 
 period of our history. There is another question which 
 comes home to my mind with a gravity and seriousness 
 which I can scarcely hope to communicate to you. 
 You who lived during the period from 181 5 to 1822 
 may remember that this country was probably never in 
 a more uneasy position. The sufferings of the working 
 classes were beyond description, and the difficulties, 
 and struggles, and bankruptcies of the middle classes 
 were such as few persons have a just idea of. There 
 was scarcely a year in which there was not an incipient
 
 230 Bright's Speeches 
 
 insurrection in some parts of the country, arising from 
 the sufferings which the working classes endured. You 
 know very well that the Government of the day em- 
 ployed spies to create plots, and to get ignorant men to 
 combine to take unlawful oaths ; and you know that in 
 the town of Stirling, two men who, but for this 
 diabolical agency, might have lived good and honest 
 citizens, paid the penalty of their lives for their con- 
 nection with unlawful combinations of this kind. 
 
 Well, if you go into war now you will have more 
 banners to decorate your cathedrals and churches. 
 Englishmen will fight now as well as they ever did, 
 and there is ample power to back them, if the country 
 can be but sufficiently excited and deluded. You may 
 raise up great Generals. You may have another Wel- 
 lington, and another Nelson too ; for this country can 
 grow men capable for every enterprise. Then there 
 may be titles, and pensions, and marble monuments to 
 eternize the men who have thus become great ; but 
 what becomes of you and your country, and your 
 children ? For there is more than this in store. That 
 seven years to which I have referred was a period 
 dangerous to the existence of Government in this 
 country, for the whole substratum, the whole founda- 
 tions of society were discontented, suffering intolerable 
 evils, and hostile in the bitterest degree to the institu- 
 tions and the Government of the country. 
 
 Precisely the same things will come again. Rely on it, 
 that injustice of any kind, be it bad laws, or be it a 
 bloody, unjust, and unnecessary war, of necessity 
 creates perils to every institution in the country. If the 
 Corn-law had continued, if it had been impossible, by 
 peaceful agitation, to abolish it, the monarchy itself 
 would not have survived the ruin and disaster that it 
 must have wrought. And if you go into a war now, 
 with a doubled population, with a vast commerce, with 
 extended credit, and a wider diffusion of partial educa- 
 tion among the people, let there ever- come a time like 
 the period between 18 15 and 1822, when the whole 
 basis of society is upheaving with a sense of intolerable 
 suffering, I ask you, how many years' purchase would
 
 Peace 231 
 
 you give even for the venerable and mild monarchy 
 under which you have the happiness to live ? I confess 
 when I think of the tremendous perils into which un- 
 thinking men — men who do not intend to fight them- 
 selves — are willing to drag or to hurry this country, I 
 am amazed how they can trifle with interests so vast, 
 and consequences so much beyond their calculation. 
 
 But, speaking here in Edinburgh to such an audience 
 — an audience probably for its numbers as intelligent 
 and as influential as ever was assembled within the 
 walls of any hall in this kingdom — I think I may put 
 before you higher considerations even than those of 
 property and the institutions of your country. I may 
 remind you of duties more solemn, and of obligations 
 more imperative. You profess to be a Christian nation. 
 You make it your boast even — though boasting is some- 
 what out of place in such questions — you make it your 
 boast that you are a Protestant people, and that you 
 draw your rule of doctrine and practice, as from a well 
 pure and undefiled, from the living oracles of God, 
 and from the direct revelation of the Omnipotent. 
 You have even conceived the magnificent project of 
 illuminating the whole earth, even to its remotest and 
 darkest recesses, by the dissemination of the volume of 
 the New Testament, in whose every page are written 
 for ever the words of peace. Within the limits of this 
 island alone, on every Sabbath, 20,000, yes, far more 
 than 20,000 temples are thrown open, in which devout 
 men and women assemble that they may worship Him 
 who is the " Prince of Peace." 
 
 Is this a reality ? or is your Christianity a romance ? 
 is your profession a dream ? No, I am sure that your 
 Christianity is not a romance, and I am equally sure 
 that your profession is not a dream. It is because I 
 believe this that I appeal to you with confidence, and 
 that I have hope and faith in the future. I believe that 
 we shall see, and at no very distant time, sound economic 
 principles spreading much more widely amongst the 
 people ; a sense of justice growing up in a soil which 
 hitherto has been deemed unfruitful ; and, which will 
 be better than all — the churches of the United Kingdom
 
 232 Bright's Speeches 
 
 —the churches of Britain awaking, as it were, from 
 their slumbers, and girding up their loins to more 
 glorious work, when they shall not only accept and be- 
 lieve in the prophecy, but labour earnestly for its 
 fulfilment, that there shall come a time— a blessed time 
 — a time which shall last for ever— when "nation shall 
 not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn 
 war any more." 
 
 XVIII 
 FREE TRADE 
 
 Rochdale, January 2, 1877. 
 
 [On this day, Mr. Bright having been invited to be present at the 
 Anniversary of the Rochdale Working Men's Club, and to 
 deliver them an address, consented to do so. It was a 
 peculiarity of this Club that it was entirely self-supporting, 
 and independent of the patronage of richer persons. Mr. 
 Bright took occasion to show what had been the material 
 progress of the country during the thirty years preceding the 
 time of his address.] 
 
 Many of us — the younger generation no doubt — are 
 very ignorant about the change in the working-man's 
 condition during the generation with which I have been 
 connected — I mean during the last forty years. I 
 venture to say that there can scarcely be anything more 
 worth while a working-man's examining and compre- 
 hending than the change which has taken place in the 
 condition of his class. When you speak of a working- 
 man, you mean of course a man who is accustomed 
 regularly to some useful employment or work. To be 
 a man at all he must have food, and to be a healthy 
 man one would say that it was necessary he should 
 have a free market for the purchase of his food. To be 
 a working-man he must have materials with which to 
 work, and it would seem reasonable that he should 
 have a free market for the purchase of materials. More 
 than that, as far as possible, he should have a free 
 market for the sale of his materials. A great many 
 people in this country — I hope a diminishing number —
 
 Free Trade 233 
 
 think that because other countries do not allow us to 
 send our goods into their market free of duty, therefore 
 we should not allow them to send their goods to this 
 market free of duty. They think two bad things are 
 better than one. They remind me very much of what it 
 would be if a man had got a sound box on one side of 
 his head, and he was to go about complaining that 
 nobody gave him another sound box on the other side. 
 
 Now, we will go back for a period which I remember 
 very well, and which many in this meeting must 
 remember. We will go back to the year 1840. At 
 that time there was great distress in the country. The 
 duties upon goods coming into this country were 
 almost beyond counting. I believe there were at least 
 1,200 articles on which, by the law of England, taxes 
 were levied when the goods came into Liverpool, or 
 London, or Hull, or Glasgow, or any other of the ports 
 of the kingdom. Everything was taxed, and everything 
 was limited and restricted. Even bread, the common 
 food of the people, was taxed, almost more highly than 
 anything else. Now, you may imagine — nay, you 
 cannot imagine — but you may try to imagine in what 
 kind of fetters all our industry was chained at that time. 
 And you may try to imagine, but now in this day you 
 cannot imagine, what was the amount of pauperism, 
 suffering, and abject misery perpetually prevailing 
 among the great body of the working-classes in the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 I shall only refer to two articles, and from them you 
 may learn what was the state of things with regard to 
 others. I shall ask your attention to two articles only, 
 those of corn and sugar. Up to the year 1846, that is, 
 just thirty years ago — everybody who is fifty years of 
 age ought to remember all about it very well — up to 
 1846 corn was in reality prohibited from coming to this 
 country from abroad, until our own prices had risen so 
 high by reason of a deficient harvest that people began 
 to complain and began to starve, and it was let in at 
 these very high prices in order in some degree to 
 mitigate starvation, and to make famine less unsafe. 
 # -::- # * -*
 
 234 Bright's Speeches 
 
 People that were well off had their tables as well 
 furnished as now. Their loaf never dwindled and 
 became less. They were always well fed, plump in 
 the cheeks, living many of them sufficiently and most 
 of them luxuriously. The suffering was amongst the 
 wages class. Misery most abject, a permanent con- 
 dition of starvation, all the consequences of this 
 dreadful system, pressed with more and more weight 
 as it came more and more down to the very humblest 
 and very poorest of the people. Well, what was it all 
 done for ? It was done under the pretence that it was 
 necessary for the protection of all our great agricultural 
 interests. They did not say much about the rents of 
 landlords, because the landlords had passed the law, 
 but the landlords' rents were the first consideration. 
 The second was the prosperity of the farmers. These 
 Corn Laws were necessary in order that they might be 
 able to pay good rents. And sometimes they even 
 ventured to speak about the agricultural labourer, 
 although it was well known then and is well known 
 now that the agricultural labourer, under the influence 
 of this law, was in the most miserable condition of any 
 of the various classes of labourers into which the 
 working-class population of the country can be divided. 
 
 But that law destroyed your trade. You could not 
 receive corn from abroad, and your foreign customers, 
 therefore, could not buy from you, and whilst it raised 
 the price of your food it diminished the demand for 
 your labour, and, as a matter of course, lessened the 
 wages you received for your labour. Now I venture 
 to say here — and one may say it thirty years after the 
 event ; one may now say things which would have 
 been probably hurtful to the feelings of some of those 
 who supported that law — in my opinion there is not on 
 the record of any other people at any time, much less 
 of any civilized and professedly Christian people, so 
 astounding a crime against the security of the Govern- 
 ment itself, and against the population it was called 
 upon to rule, as the Corn Law of 1815, passed by the 
 Imperial Parliament of this country. If you could 
 turn back to a year of abundant harvests and low prices,
 
 Free Trade 235 
 
 like 1836, and then turn to the years 1840 and 1841, 
 when the harvests had been bad, and when food was 
 dear, you would find three things that would appal you. 
 First of all, that as prices were rising, as the harvest 
 failed, pauperism throughout the whole of the country 
 — amongst the manufacturing population, amongst the 
 farm-labourers — was constantly and steadily increasing, 
 and not only that, but that crime, and every kind of 
 crime, was increasing just about at the same rate. 
 
 It was in these times that Ebenezer Elliott, the 
 Sheffield poet — the Corn-law Rhymer — wrote his burn- 
 ing and scathing condemnation of this law. Many of 
 you here are no doubt weavers employed in the cotton 
 or woollen trade of this town, and have read the 
 touching lines in which he is showing how the Corn 
 Law is striking here and there almost everybody, 
 blasting his prosperity and his hopes, and condemning 
 him and his family to daily suffering. He turns at last 
 to the weaver, and he says : 
 
 " Bread-taxed weaver, all may see 
 What that tax hath done for thee, 
 And thy children vilely led, 
 Singing hymns for shameful bread, 
 Till the stones of every street 
 Know their little naked feet." 
 
 And then looking upon the growth of crime, the con- 
 spiracies that were constantly afloat, the insurrections 
 which were looked towards by people as a relief, he 
 then addresses the ancient monarchy of his country. 
 He says : 
 
 " What shall bread tax do for thee, 
 Venerable monarchy ? 
 Dreams of evil spare my sight ; 
 Let that horror rest in night." 
 
 He knew, and everybody knew who comprehended the 
 character and operation of that law, that if it should 
 continue to afflict the people as it did through thirty 
 years of its existence, there was no institution in this 
 country, not even its venerable monarchy, that could 
 stand the strain that that law would bring to bear upon
 
 236 Bright's Speeches 
 
 it. But there was another fact shown by the figures of 
 that time — that not only pauperism increased, and crime 
 increased, but mortality increased. Strong men and 
 women were stricken down by the law, but the aged 
 and little children were its constant and most numerous 
 victims. I recollect, in one of those fine speeches 
 which the late Mr. Fox — I mean Mr. Fox who for 
 many years, as you recollect, and not long ago, was one 
 of the representatives of the neighbouring town of 
 Oldham — I recollect an observation, or a passage in 
 a speech of Mr. Fox, spoken, I think, from the boards 
 of Covent Garden Theatre, at one of our great meetings, 
 where he said, referring to the mortality among the 
 people, and the death-rate rapidly increasing when the 
 harvest failed, and when foreign food was prohibited, 
 " The Corn Law is the harvest of Death as well as of 
 the landowner, and Monopoly says to Corruption, 
 ' Thou art my brother.' " 
 
 Under the Government of Sir Robert Peel, in 1846, 
 the law was repealed, and three years afterwards — in 
 1849 — all the duties on these articles were taken off, 
 except a shilling per quarter, which has been more 
 recently abolished. Since this happened there has 
 been no fall of rents throughout the kingdom. In point 
 of fact the prosperity of the country has been so in- 
 creased that the rent of land throughout the country is 
 now higher than it was when that Corn Law was in 
 existence, and the farmers, who were always com- 
 plaining during the existence of that law, have scarcely 
 ever been heard to complain in the least since it was 
 abolished. They complained for a year or two because 
 they had been greatly frightened, but there has never 
 been, I will say, within the last hundred years a period 
 when the farmers of this country have made less com- 
 plaint to the public or to Parliament than they have 
 during the last thirty years since the law for their 
 protection was abolished. And what happened to the 
 labourer ? The wages of farm-labourers have risen on 
 the whole much more, I believe, than 50 per cent, 
 throughout the whole country ; and in some counties 
 and districts, I believe, the farm-labourer at this
 
 Free Trade 237 
 
 moment is receiving double the wages he was when 
 this law was in existence. We ought to learn from 
 this what a grand thing it is to establish our laws upon 
 a basis of freedom and justice. It blesses him who 
 gives and him who takes. It has blessed all our 
 manufacturing districts with a steadiness of employ- 
 ment and an abundance they never knew before, and 
 it has blessed not less the very class who in their dark 
 error and blindness thought that they could have 
 profited by that which was so unjust, so cruel to the 
 bulk of their countrymen. 
 
 Now we will just turn for a moment to the article of 
 sugar — these are the great articles of consumption, and 
 therefore I deal with them. The sugar that supplied 
 this country up to a period a little after that when the 
 Corn Laws were abolished came mainly from the 
 West Indies. A good deal came from the East Indies, 
 but I will refer now chiefly to the West Indian colonies, 
 Jamaica, Barbadoes, Antigua, and others. A little 
 before that time, between forty and fifty years ago, the 
 planters of the West Indies were in a very peculiar 
 condition. In the first place they cultivated the sugar- 
 cane by slave labour ; they therefore stole the labour 
 by which they grew their crops. No doubt they kept 
 their negroes barely alive, but they paid no wages as 
 we are accustomed to consider wages. But they were 
 not satisfied with stealing the labour with which they 
 grew their crops. They asked the Parliament of this 
 country to give them almost the exclusive use of the 
 English market, so that they might sell their sugar here 
 at a price much higher than they could get in any of 
 the other markets of the wor/d. And many of these 
 planters being people of importance and influence in 
 this country and associated with our land proprietors, 
 and our land proprietors being in the same boat with 
 regard to bread, of course it was only natural that they 
 should be as kind to the West Indian planters at our 
 expense as they had been to themselves ; and thus, in 
 addition to the curse of a corn monopoly, you had the 
 curse, a diminished, but still a curse, of a monopoly of 
 sugar. What was the result ? I will take the year
 
 238 B right's Speeches 
 
 [840. In that year this country imported from abroad 
 4,000,000 cwt. of sugar, which cost 9,000,000/. Now 
 what do we import ? Last year — I mean the year 
 ended in September — we imported 16,000,000 cwt., 
 that is four times the quantity we imported in 1840. 
 But what did it cost ? It did not cost four times as 
 much as in 1840. It did not cost half as much, but 
 instead of costing 9,000,000/., as the 4,000,000 cwt. did, 
 it cost 17,000,000/. If the sugar we imported last year 
 had been imported at the same price, the monopoly 
 price, as in 1840, the 16,000,000 cwt. would have cost 
 us 36,000,000/. instead of the 17,000,000/. which it 
 actually did cost. You see, therefore, that the abolition 
 of the protection upon sugar has just had the same 
 effect in degree that it had upon corn. The quantity 
 imported has been enormously increased, and the price 
 has been to an extraordinary degree diminished. 
 
 There are many ladies in this meeting who know — 
 and I dare say there are a great many husbands who 
 know, too, as much about these things as their wives — 
 that sugar has lately risen within the last few months, 
 but till then it has been about as cheap as flour. I 
 recollect, at a meeting held in Surrey during our 
 agitation thirty years ago, that a gentleman stood up 
 and made a speech. He was a stranger. He stated 
 that he was well acquainted with sugar-growing in 
 various parts of the world, and said, " If you abolish 
 the protection on sugar, sugar will be as cheap as 
 turnips." It has not, I believe, been as cheap as 
 turnips, but it has been so cheap that it must have 
 added greatly to the comfort of families, and to the ease 
 with which many othertthings, fruit and so on, are 
 made palatable, especially to children in families. 
 ***** 
 
 Now, having done with the question of imports, I 
 must just ask you to look at this matter from another 
 side. You all of you know that if 118,000,000 cwt. of 
 grain of one kind and another, and if 16,000,000 cwt. of 
 raw sugar — for I have not dealt with refined sugar, 
 and there is a large quantity of that- — if all these 
 quantities come into this country — they are coming
 
 Free Trade 239 
 
 now from many parts all over the world — somebody 
 must pay for them. You buy your sugar in the shop, 
 and the shopkeeper buys it from the wholesale dealer 
 in London or Liverpool, and he brings it from abroad, 
 and payment is made in the articles which the in- 
 dustrious and intelligent workmen of England make, 
 which find employment for all your mills and manu- 
 factories of every kind. What they make is sent out 
 abroad to pay for those articles. What must neces- 
 sarily be the result ? That there must be an enor- 
 mously increased demand for the labour of the work- 
 men ; and there has been that demand as you all know. 
 I recollect the time very well when every Monday 
 morning there would be from ten to twenty men and 
 women coming to any factory in this neighbourhood, 
 and asking if there was a place open for them, and 
 wanting to be employed. That sort of thing has been 
 entirely changed. I wish that weaver were living now 
 who, when before a Parliamentary Committee, some 
 forty years ago, said he always noticed that if there 
 were two men running after one master, wages always 
 seemed as if they were inclined to go down ; but when 
 there were two masters running after one man, he 
 always noticed that wages were inclined to go up. 
 That was a sensible weaver, an observant weaver ; but 
 there were many men in both Houses of Parliament 
 forty years ago who did not understand so very simple 
 a proposition as that ; and it took about seven years' 
 lecturing and preaching and arguing before we could 
 get it into their — I will say their very dull heads. But 
 now if you look all over the country, I think you will 
 see, all of you — I mean every man of fifty years of age, 
 and every woman of that age, will see — that there has 
 been a great improvement in the condition of what I call 
 the wages class, the class of persons who get their wages 
 every week or fortnight for a week or a fortnight's work. 
 There is a book published in Liverpool, an almanack, 
 called the " Financial Reform Almanack." Its price is 
 one shilling. How it can be sold at that price is a 
 marvel. I believe there is no other book published in 
 this country which will give you so much information
 
 240 Bright's Speeches 
 
 with regard to imports and exports, to consumption, to 
 everything that we use, taxation, expenditure of taxes, 
 matters of Government, pensions, and so forth. I 
 believe there is no other publication in the country that 
 is to be compared with the " Financial Reform 
 Almanack"; and every honest man who wants an 
 honest Government ought to have that book some- 
 where near, so that he can apply to it when he wants 
 information on any of these questions ; and I do not 
 know how to express my admiration of the industry 
 and the accuracy with which Mr. M 'Queen, who is, I 
 think, the secretary of the association, has compiled 
 this remarkable book. Two or three figures, taken 
 from this book, will tell you what I mean with regard 
 to the changed condition of the people. I go back to 
 1840, and compare it with 1875. In 1840 — I will take 
 the article of bacon ; bacon was not allowed to come in 
 in those days at all. Now the 32,000,000 or 33,000,000 
 of people in the United Kingdom consume, not of 
 home-grown bacon, but of bacon that is imported, more 
 than 8 lbs. weight per individual, that is, an advance of 
 8 lbs. from nothing at all. The consumption of butter 
 has increased from 1 lb. to 5 lbs. for each individual ; 
 of cheese, from 1 lb. to 5^ lbs. ; of potatoes from 
 nothing to 16 lbs. ; of rice from 1 lb. to 11 lbs. ; of tea, 
 from 1^ lb. to 4! lbs. ; of sugar, from 15 lbs. per head 
 to 53 lbs. per head ; of wheat flour, from 42 lbs. per 
 head — and I believe the year 1840 was a year of con- 
 siderable importation because the prices were high — it 
 has risen from 42 lbs. in 1840 to 197 lbs. per head in 
 1875. All this has been brought about without any 
 violence, without wronging anybody. There is not a 
 human being in England who has a loaf less or a 
 pound of sugar less, or any of these things less by what 
 has been done. There was no violence, no insurrection, 
 no bloodshed, no disorder, the people have merely 
 become more intelligent, Parliament more intelligent, 
 and statesmen more intelligent ; and all this has been 
 done by merely tearing up two or three foolish Acts of 
 Parliament, and allowing people their natural freedom 
 to buy and sell where they could buy and sell to the 
 greatest advantage.
 
 Free Trade 241 
 
 Forty years ago people were all talking about 
 emigration. Why do not the people emigrate ? people 
 asked. There were societies for promoting emigration. 
 I read only two or three days ago an article in the 
 Fortnightly Review, a review of the life of the late Canon 
 Kingsley, and I found he said that thirty or forty years 
 ago all thoughtful people were appalled at the state of 
 the country. They thought something was going to 
 happen, the state of the country was so bad. The 
 people suffered so much, they were so discontented, 
 that there would before long be a great catastrophe, 
 like a general insurrection or revolution ; and people 
 said, why cannot millions go to a country where there 
 is room for them ? The people have emigrated, of 
 course, as an active-minded people like this always will 
 emigrate. But emigration has not made this great 
 change. People are far more numerous in the country 
 now than they were then, and yet for all that, they are 
 much better off, there is much greater demand for 
 labour, and the rate of wages in every branch of labour 
 is higher than it was at that time. 
 
 I will leave this question of tariffs, and duties, and 
 protection, and free trade, and ask the attention of the 
 members of the Workmen's Club to one or two other 
 points, in order to show the change in their condition. 
 Look at what has taken place in this country with 
 regard to the means of education and the possibility of 
 rearing your children to be intelligent young men and 
 women as compared with what existed at the time to 
 which I have referred. Now nearly everybody has a 
 newspaper if he chooses to have it. I was very much 
 amused some two months ago when I was down at the 
 town of Kelso, in Scotland. It was one of the days 
 when everybody was expecting news from Constanti- 
 nople. I went into the market square of Kelso with a 
 friend of mine, with whom I was staying, and we called 
 at a shop to get a copy of the Scotsman newspaper, and 
 I said, " I never saw such a sight as this before." 
 There was this large square, quite a large space, and all 
 round it there were groups of men, three or four or five 
 or six, standing together, and somebody in each group 
 
 Q
 
 242 Bright's Speeches 
 
 reading a paper. The paper was there at hand for 
 everybody who wished to read it and who wished to 
 learn. That is a change which has taken place merely 
 by a change of law. At the time I have been speaking 
 of, the paper upon which a newspaper was printed had 
 a heavy excise duty upon it. As soon as the paper 
 went to the Observer office, or the Manchester Examiner, 
 or the Manchester Guardian office it had to go on to a 
 Government office and have a stamp placed on each 
 paper, and every stamp was charged \d. Then when 
 advertisements were put in, the unfortunate newspaper 
 proprietor had to pay 3s. 6d. for every advertisement. 
 The charge for advertisements was afterwards reduced 
 to 15. 6d., and subsequently the duty was abolished; 
 and now it happens that you can get a newspaper every 
 day for a halfpenny or a penny. Take the Evening News 
 published in Manchester, or the Manchester Examiner, 
 or the Manchester Guardian, or your paper here, the 
 Observer. Every paper of that sort cost yd. then ; now 
 it costs \d., or id. at the most. These taxes were not 
 levied for the sake of bringing money into the public 
 Exchequer. They were put on mostly during the reign 
 of Queen Anne, and the object was to limit the number 
 of newspapers, to strangle them, to prevent the people 
 having political information and expressing their political 
 views. And those taxes remained until a few years 
 ago. when the last of them was abolished. 
 
 And now what an excellent machine, what an 
 admirable thing a good newspaper is ! Your news- 
 papers are larger than those — infinitely better ; there 
 are ten in the country for every one there was then ; 
 and what do they tell you ? Everything. They are 
 not for rich men only. The rich man gives a penny 
 for his paper or 3d. for the Times, which after all is 
 probably quite as cheap as any of the others from some 
 peculiarities of information with which it furnishes the 
 public ; but the rich man can get no more out of his 
 newspaper than one of you who pays a penny for it. 
 What do you get ? If you read within the last day or 
 two what did you see ? In Canada there is a strike of 
 the engine drivers on the Grand Trunk Railway — they
 
 Free Trade 243 
 
 are no wiser in Canada, it appears, than they are here. 
 If you cross the frontier to the United States, you see 
 an account of the most appalling accident that has ever 
 happened since railways were made, and you see a 
 great discussion about the election of President. If you 
 go a little further south, you read about the division 
 that exists in that unfortunate country of Mexico. If 
 you cross the ocean and go to Australia, you hear that 
 they are discussing the price of wool, and whether one 
 of the colonies shall continue its system of protection, 
 or adopt the system of free trade established in another. 
 If you cross the ocean to the Cape of Good Hope (we 
 see all this in the papers we buy for a penny), you see, 
 not all the discussions, but what is sufficient for you, 
 that are going on with the attempt to make a confedera- 
 tion of the South African Colonies. Then you go to 
 India, and even this very day — Socrates, and Plato, 
 and Epaminondas, and all the ancient Greeks and 
 ancient Romans had never dreamt of such a thing as 
 you see to-day in your newspapers — the account of the 
 grand ceremony which took place yesterday at Delhi, 
 in Northern India, the proclamation made that the 
 Queen of England was henceforth the Empress of her 
 Indian dominions. Then if you go overland to Egypt 
 you read of something which is not pleasant about the 
 Egyptian debt. And then you go to Constantinople, 
 and you hear there that affairs are in a very critical 
 position, and you hear, what I am very glad to see and 
 believe, that the policy of our Government is more in 
 accordance with the policy indicated by the public 
 opinion of this country than it was some time ago. 
 We must always bear this in mind, that the policy 
 with which our Government began their proceedings 
 was supposed at that time to be the policy of the 
 nation. It was the policy of 1856 and of the Crimean 
 war. It was a policy which I was not able to coincide 
 with, and which I always condemned very much, as 
 you know. The Government began that policy, and 
 they adhered to it, I think, some time longer perhaps 
 than after thay ought to have abandoned it. I trust 
 now they have adopted a course more in accordance 
 
 Q 2
 
 244 B right's Speeches 
 
 with the opinions, and, I believe, with the true interests 
 of this country, than the past policy of England with 
 regard to Turkey. But, if you leave Constantinople — 
 which I see it is very difficult for you to leave— you 
 read that the English fleet has gone from Besika Bay 
 to the Piraeus, which is a port of Greece. You read 
 that the Italians, with nobody likely to attack them, 
 are foolishly making ioo-ton guns. If you go to Paris 
 you see discussions that are going on between their 
 Senate and their Chamber of Deputies, that is to say, 
 between their House of Lords and their House of 
 Commons, as to who shall have the absolute control 
 of the public purse. And all this you see every day in 
 your newspaper, so far as the editor can do it, accurately 
 and truthfully given, and all this in addition to the 
 information, sometimes amusing, often instructive, 
 often grievous and afflicting, of all that transpires in 
 your own country. All this is brought before you 
 every morning, beautifully printed, and for a price that 
 when you have had it every morning for a week costs 
 you no more than a single quart of very poor beer. 
 
 But, then, the newspapers are only one element of 
 instruction. Look at what has been done with regard 
 to schools. The Bill of 1870 was a great measure, 
 deficient in many parts, which, from its deficiency and 
 incompleteness, has been the cause of much dissension 
 in the country. But still it was a great measure, and 
 the future of it will be great. What happens now 
 every year with respect to education ? In the parlia- 
 mentary grants no less than 2,500,000/. a year are voted 
 for the school system of England, Wales, Scotland, and 
 Ireland. Parliament, therefore, is anxious that the 
 whole population of the country should be educated, 
 and it will be the fault of the parents of this generation 
 if the next generation is not much advanced beyond 
 what we are in the education and culture which 
 children shall receive. 
 
 I might tell you what science has done. You travel 
 now at the same rate as a royal Duke. There are third- 
 class carriages by every train on some of the principal 
 railways. I do not mean to say that nobody but work-
 
 Free Trade 245 
 
 men go in third-class carriages, because I recollect a 
 story of a rich man in this neighbourhood, who being 
 asked why he travelled third class said, " For a very 
 good reason — because there is no fourth class." Turn 
 now to the Post Office. You write a letter, and put a 
 penny stamp upon it. You receive a letter, and your 
 correspondent has put a penny stamp on it. I recollect 
 paying to the post-mistress in Rochdale, when Mrs. 
 Lee was post-mistress, a long time ago — and she was 
 not always very polite, I remember, when she was in a 
 hurry — paying no less than 25s. for the postage of a 
 single letter from Leghorn, in Italy. The postage on 
 such a letter now would be i\d., or perhaps it might 
 be 5^., as the letter had many inclosures. Look at 
 your telegraphs. By post and telegraph every work- 
 man has opportunities and advantages which our fore- 
 fathers never dreamt of. You can inquire whether 
 work is scarce or abundant, whether there is reason to 
 move to this town or to that. These scientific improve- 
 ments are of great service to all classes, and they are 
 of more service to the workman than the workmen 
 themselves have fully understood. 
 
 There is only one other point to which I shall refer as 
 to changes in the law, and that is with regard to the 
 extension of the borough franchise. You know what 
 a terrible thing it was in prospect, how many people 
 said we were going to Americanize our institutions. 
 They did not know what that meant, but they used the 
 phrase, and what harm has happened ? They said that 
 property would not be safe, and how everybody would 
 overturn everybody else. And what has happened ? 
 The most conspicuous fact throughout the country is, 
 that there is universal content in all the borough popu- 
 lation among those to whom the franchise has been 
 extended. At this moment there are no conspiracies. 
 Your workmen's club is not a political club to get up 
 some movement against the law or the monarchy. 
 There is nothing of that kind now. In time past, even 
 those very persons who were so much afraid of us did 
 not hold their property and their privileges by so secure 
 a tenure as they have held them since the passing of
 
 246 Bright's Speeches 
 
 the law. N;iy, the monarch of these realms, popular 
 as she has always been ; popular as she has always 
 deserved to be ; still, I will undertake to say of her — 
 I say it without hesitation, and without fear of contra- 
 diction—that there were times within the last thirty 
 years, and since she came to the throne, when there 
 was a great deal less of an honest and true loyalty than 
 is to be found in this country at the present time. 
 
 And you have not only got the franchise, but you 
 have got the ballot to secure you from any compulsion 
 with regard to its exercise. I recollect a peer, whose 
 name you would know very well if I were to' mention 
 it, who went about in a state of almost mental agony, 
 saying, " If this Ballot Bill be passed the whole influence 
 of property will be gone." But what has happened ? 
 The influence of property, so far as it is a just influence, 
 exists now, and is exercised now, and any exercise 
 which it had before the ballot was conferred was an 
 exercise that it ought not to have had, and was a 
 tyranny over all those upon whom it was exercised. 
 
 But I want to tell the working-men of this workman's 
 club what some of them do not — at least what some 
 workmen do not appear altogether to appreciate or 
 comprehend — that they are now the full citizens of a 
 free country, and that on them a great responsibility is 
 devolved. Is it not a grand history, that of the last 
 forty years ? Are not the changes such as all of us 
 may be proud of, that they have been effected with so 
 little, in fact with no disturbance ? You cannot point, 
 probably, to a revolution of violence in any country of 
 late times where there has been so much done of per- 
 manent good, in the same period, as has been done for 
 the people of this country by the wise changes in our 
 law. And yet, I dare say, history will not say very 
 much of these changes. The fact is, history busies 
 itself with other matters. It will tell our children, I 
 dare say, of conquests in India, of annexation, it may 
 be in the Punjaub, of Chinese wars — wars which were 
 as discreditable to us as they have been unprofitable. 
 It will tell your children of the destruction of Sebastopol, 
 and perhaps it may tell them that everything for which
 
 Free Trade 247 
 
 Sebastopol was destroyed has been surrendered, or is 
 being now surrendered, by an English Minister at 
 Constantinople. But of all these changes which have 
 saved the nation from anarchy and an English monarchy 
 from ruin, history will probably say but little. Blood 
 shines more upon her pages, and the grand and noise- 
 less triumphs of peace and of wise and just legislation 
 too often find but scanty memorial from her hands. 
 
 But now there may be those who will put this ques- 
 tion to me. Some of my critics to-morrow or the day 
 after will say, What has this to do with working-men's 
 clubs ? Why talk politics to a meeting which is under- 
 stood not to be a political meeting ? I have not been 
 talking politics. These questions which I have been 
 discussing were politics a few years ago, when the con- 
 test was raging round us whether they should be settled 
 justly or not. Now they are not politics, they are not 
 matters of controversy, they are matters of history, 
 and I am treating you to a chapter of history. But 
 then they will say, Why tell us the old story, and go 
 back to the Corn Law and the Sugar monopoly ? 
 They will say I wanted to glorify myself before my 
 fellow-townsmen because I had taken a humble part, 
 with hundreds of thousands of others, in carrying these 
 measures. No, I tell you the old story because there 
 are many in this room who are too young to have known 
 much about it, and it is a great and salutary lesson for 
 the members of the workmen's club, and for workmen 
 everywhere to have spoken and read to them. It tells 
 them of freedom, and how freedom was won, and what 
 freedom has done for them, and it points the way to 
 other paths of freedom which yet lie open before 
 them. 
 
 The workman of England now is no longer a human 
 machine, minding a spindle or a loom, or working at 
 the bench, or at the forge, or in the mine. He is not a 
 man only to make goods for export, but he is a man into 
 whom, by these changes, has been infused a new life, and 
 to whom is given a new and a wholesome responsibility. 
 Every voting working-man in England is now a ruler of 
 men, and a joint ruler of many nations, and it is worth
 
 248 Bright's Speeches 
 
 while for the working-men of England to look their 
 responsibility in the face. There are some further 
 things which a wise legislature may do for them, but 
 the main thing to be done for them must be done by 
 themselves. There are many teachers and many plans. 
 Some say that co-operation will save everybody. Well, 
 co-operation in this town has been, I believe, of remark- 
 able advantage to those who have been concerned in it. 
 Co-operation in joint-stock companies affords an easy 
 mode for the investment of savings, and is, therefore, 
 a very advantageous though new institution amongst 
 us. Some think that trade unions will set everything 
 right. I am of opinion that trade unions may be useful 
 if they will not depart from sound economic principles, 
 and if they will not interfere with the individual freedom 
 of their members or the freedom of those who have the 
 employment of capital. I recollect last year, or per- 
 haps it was the year before last, in some observations I 
 made at Birmingham, I pointed to the fact that there is 
 no class of persons whose wages have risen more in the 
 last twenty years than the class of domestic servants, 
 and amongst domestic servants there are no trade 
 unions, no committees, no orators to expound their 
 interests and maintain their cause. A great leader in 
 trade unions set himself to answer me, and what was 
 his answer ? He said the case of the woman servant 
 is easily explained. It is explained by the vast emigra- 
 tion of young women to foreign countries, seeking there 
 a better livelihood than they could get here. They 
 have diminished the supply and wages have risen. He 
 seemed to have forgotten that there have been three 
 times as many men who have emigrated as women, and 
 if the trade unions to raise wages were not necessary 
 for the women, certainly upon his own argument they 
 could not be necessary for the men. No, the great rise 
 of wages has come from the causes I have indicated, 
 and if they have come from any other cause, by limit- 
 ing the number of persons to work in a particular trade, 
 and by controlling, and unreasonably controlling, as it 
 has sometimes been, their employers, then that rise of 
 wages is not just, and is not permanently advantageous
 
 Free Trade 249 
 
 to the whole people. It may be for a time advantageous 
 to the particular class by whom it is enforced. 
 
 I conclude what I have to say with only one other 
 point, and that is on the question of education. I 
 believe that workmen have need to be taught, to have 
 it pointed out to them, how much their own family com- 
 fort and the success and happiness of their children 
 depends on this — that they should do all they can to 
 give their children such education as is in their power. 
 One of the American States is the State of Massachu- 
 setts, and it is probably the most educated and intel- 
 lectual. It has a system of general education. Massa- 
 chusetts was founded about 250 years ago. From that 
 time to this it has had a system — a very extended system 
 — of public schools. Eight generations of its population 
 have had the advantage of being educated in these 
 schools. The men who were driven from this country 
 by the tyranny of monarch and Archbishop founded this 
 school system — the men of whom the poet I have already 
 quoted speaks in these terms, describing them as — 
 
 " The Fathers of New England who unbound 
 In wild Columbia Europe's double chain." 
 
 Meaning the chain of a despotic monarchy and of a 
 despotic and persecuting Church. Suppose we had had 
 in this country all that time schools for the education 
 of your children, to what a position this country would 
 have risen by this time ! 
 
 I want to ask working-men to do their utmost to 
 support the school system. Be it a school belonging 
 to a sect, or be it a school belonging to the School 
 Board; if it be a convenient or a possible school for 
 your children, take care that your children go to school, 
 so that Parliament in voting 2,500,000/. for purposes of 
 education — 2,500,000/. to which you subscribe by the 
 taxes — shall have the cordial and the enthusiastic sup- 
 port of the people in forwarding education to the greatest 
 possible degree in their power. Depend upon it, if you 
 support the school the school will compensate you. 
 You know, I dare say, a passage, which is one of the 
 many striking passages which you may find in the
 
 250 Bright's Speeches 
 
 writings of Shakspere — where he says, speaking of 
 children that are rebellious and troublesome — 
 
 " How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, 
 To have a thankless child." 
 
 I ask working-men, and I might ask it of every class 
 to a certain extent, how much of the unhappiness of 
 families, how much of the grief and gloom which often 
 overshadow the later years of parents, come from what 
 I may call the rebellion of children against their 
 parents' authority, and against the moral law. If you 
 will send your children to school, encourage them in 
 their learning, make them feel that this is a great thing 
 for them to possess, the generation to come will be much 
 superior to the generations that have passed, and those 
 who come after us will see that prospering, of which we 
 can only look forward to see the beginnings in the 
 efforts which are now being made. And more than 
 this, besides making your families happier, besides 
 doing so much for the success of your children in life, 
 you will also produce this great result, that you will do 
 much to build up the fabric of the greatness and the 
 glory of your country upon the sure foundation of an 
 intelligent and a Christian people. 
 
 XIX 
 PROGRESS OF THE NATION 
 
 Birmingham, January 29, 1864. 
 
 On the evening of this day Mr. Bright attended a soiree in the 
 Assembly Room of Nock's Hotel. The audience was 
 necessarily small, between two and three hundred. The 
 following address was delivered in answer to a motion of 
 .Mr. William Morgan, which called on the audience to 
 recognize "the patriotic labours of the members for the 
 borough." Mr. Scholefield, Mr. Bright 's colleague, was 
 unable to be present. Mr. Sturge, the eminent Birmingham 
 philanthropist, is alluded to in pp. 254, 255. The speech was 
 intended to be a familiar comment on the past history and the 
 present interests of the Reformed Parliament.] 
 
 I am afraid that I cannot in such graceful language as 
 would have been heard from the lips of my colleague,
 
 Progress of the Nation 251 
 
 had he been present, express my pleasure at the com- 
 pany of the ladies who have been kind enough to join 
 our party to-night. I can say with the greatest truth 
 that I rejoice on this, as I have on many other occasions, 
 to see them exhibiting an interest in the progress of 
 political questions. It has not only been common, as 
 Mr. Dale has said, to create the impression that what 
 are called serious people should not meddle with 
 politics, but that these public questions were entirely 
 out of the field in which women should exercise them- 
 selves. I venture, not diffidently, but confidently, to 
 differ from any such opinion, and to say that politics, by 
 which we understand the science of legislation and 
 government, have a very direct and constant influence 
 upon the happiness of every family in every country where 
 there is a government, and that, therefore, what is done 
 under the form of political action can by no means be 
 indifferent to the mothers, and wives, and sisters, and 
 daughters of England. 
 
 I have had the pleasure of meeting, whilst I have 
 been in Birmingham, a gentleman who I suppose, 
 though I have not been told it, does not generally act 
 with our political party, and after much conversation, 
 and after I had told him that some time when I came to 
 Birmingham I would speak on a particular question, he 
 said he should be very glad if some time or other I 
 would make a speech on the bright side of England. 
 You understand, I dare say, the sort of sarcasm there 
 was in that suggestion. V I suppose that, as he does not 
 agree with me on all subjects, he thought I took too 
 gloomy a view of the position and prospects of this 
 country. Now, you will admit that there are a great 
 number of speakers and a great number of writers 
 whose business it seems always to persuade everybody 
 that everybody is well treated and perfectly happy — and 
 they advise their hearers or readers to avoid the errors 
 of the French on the one hand, and the mistakes of the 
 people of America on the other. But if everybody was 
 contented and happy, and there was nothing that it was 
 our business to reform, I should stay at home. 1 have 
 no fondness for political meetings and platform work,
 
 252 Bright's Speeches 
 
 and I should not for the last twenty years have given 
 the whole of my time to public questions if nothing was 
 necessary but to come before an audience and to rejoice 
 with each other at the glorious position we occupy. It 
 is the very existence of grievances which calls me from 
 the quiet of my own home, from the pursuit of my own 
 business, and from attention to my own family ; and 
 whenever I find that there is nothing for me to do but 
 to say, " What a happy people we are, and how 
 delightful it is to be under the Government of Lord 
 Palmerston and his Whig colleagues !" then I assure 
 you I will not trouble you with saying it, but I shall 
 leave you to find it out, and I shall stay at home. 
 
 But still there is a bright side to the aspect of 
 England, and you may see some of it probably by look- 
 ing forward, and you may see a good deal of it on 
 looking backward. But the bright side of the history 
 of this country, so long as I have been permitted to 
 take any part in it, is that side in which are delineated 
 the changes that have taken place — the changes which 
 I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have sup- 
 ported — the changes which no doubt many of those who 
 would wish me to speak on in a different tone have to 
 the utmost of their power opposed. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Most of us can remember thirty or thirty-five years 
 ago, and if there be any gentleman who complains of 
 the tone of my speeches in general, I would ask him to 
 bear in mind what are the changes that have been made, 
 and if he can, to measure the results upon the prosperity 
 and upon the happiness of this country. 
 
 The first great measure which suggests itself to me is 
 that which gave the right of Parliamentary representa- 
 tion to the whole nation of Ireland, being the Catholic 
 population of that country. Up to the year 1829 no 
 person professing or holding the Christian religion as it 
 is held by the Roman Catholic Church was permitted to 
 sit in the House of Commons. There were at that 
 time, I suppose, five millions, or very nearly, of Roman 
 Catholics in Ireland, but they were not allowed to send 
 to the House of Commons any man agreeing with them
 
 Progress of the Nation 253 
 
 in religious opinions. It is within the recollection of 
 many of us that it required an agitation of a most for- 
 midable character, led on by one of the most remark- 
 able men that Ireland has ever produced — the late 
 Mr. O'Connell — to obtain the concession of that right ; 
 and bear in mind that it was fiercely opposed by a very 
 powerful body in this country, and there is a party in 
 this country even yet that regrets that the concession 
 was ever made. Therefore, although it may be said 
 that we are in a sense a free country, yet thirty-five 
 years ago 5,000,000 of Catholics in Ireland, and, perhaps, 
 nearly 1,000,000 in England, were shut out altogether 
 from representation, from being able to return any man 
 of their own religious sentiments to Parliament. Every 
 one of them was prevented from becoming a candidate 
 for a seat in Parliament ; and therefore, as regards this 
 particular, this was not then a free country. 
 
 The next great step which was made was that in 
 which Birmingham took so distinguished a part. It is 
 not certain, I think, but, looking back, we may have 
 some doubt whether the Reform Bill would have been 
 carried at the time it was if it had not been for the 
 strenuous and patriotic efforts of the inhabitants of this 
 great town. The body which has always opposed, and 
 does always oppose every step in advance, ran the 
 country to within twenty-four hours of a revolution 
 before they conceded that measure. And when it was 
 conceded, it was so mutilated, so much changed from 
 the original proposition, and on the whole, though so 
 great, was yet so inefficient, that we look upon it now 
 as leaving the representation of the country in a very 
 unsatisfactory state. Now, after that Bill had passed, 
 as was natural after so great an agitation, there was a 
 powerful swell of Liberal opinion throughout the 
 country, which did not satisfy itself by the passing of 
 that Bill, but carried other measures of great impor- 
 tance. One of them was the Bill by which all the 
 corporations in the towns and cities of the kingdom, 
 with one or two exceptions, were reformed. Up to that 
 time there was no real representation in scarcely any 
 town in the kingdom, but some half a dozen, or a dozen,
 
 254 Bright's Speeches 
 
 or two dozen men, self-elected or elected by some landed 
 proprietor or some lord of the manor, were the municipal 
 authorities. Such were the governors of your town, 
 and formed your Corporation, and the corruption was of 
 a character so foul that the odour of it remains in our 
 nostrils even to this day. Now, although corporations 
 are by no means centres of absolute wisdom — I say 
 that, of course, with great trepidation — in the presence 
 of your worthy Mayor and others who surround him ; 
 yet I think it must be acknowledged that the passing of 
 that Bill and the reform of these corporations has been 
 an enormous advantage to this country : and I only 
 hope that corporations generally will become much 
 more expensive than they have been— not expensive in 
 the sense of wasting money, but that there will be such 
 nobleness and liberality amongst the people of our 
 towns and cities, as will lead them to give their corpora- 
 tions power to expend more money on those things 
 which, as public opinion advances, are found to be 
 essential to the health and comfort and improvement of 
 our people. 
 
 About the time when that celebrated measure passed 
 there passed another still more celebrated, because it 
 affected, not England alone, but the opinion of the 
 world, and excited emotion in the mind of every good 
 man in every country, and stirred in him, I believe, a 
 lasting admiration for the wisdom and magnanimity of 
 the English people. I speak of the measure which 
 emancipated 800,000 slaves in the colonies of England, 
 and did even more than emancipate 800,000 slaves, for 
 it set an example which the world could not but follow. 
 You may rely upon it that from this great act is to be 
 dated to a large extent the creation of that conscientious 
 feeling in England which has been growing from that 
 day to this, while it is owing to the unteachable spirit of 
 the slaveholders of another country that a great nation 
 has been brought into the throes of a fearful revolution, 
 out of which I trust not only will that nation itself be 
 purified, but that 4,000,000 of slaves will be free. And 
 whilst this passes through my mind, I cannot help for a 
 moment touching upon the fact that one of your citizens
 
 Progress of the Nation 255 
 
 now no more, my personal and intimate friend, was one 
 of the most eminent of those who endeavoured to stir 
 the conscience of the English people to that great act of 
 justice; and I never pass, as I do often pass when I 
 come here, that memorable figure of him which you 
 have erected in one of the most conspicuous places in 
 your town, without hoping that every citizen of Bir- 
 mingham when he comes to consider public questions, 
 whether regarding this country or that other country to 
 which reference has already been made, and where that 
 great struggle is being carried on, will endeavour to 
 be animated by the disinterested, the noble, and the 
 Christian spirit by which your late eminent townsman 
 was distinguished. 
 
 There is another law to which I might refer, but it is 
 not of the same character, though no doubt it has been 
 productive in some cases of great advantage — I mean 
 the law which was passed for reforming the administra- 
 tion of the relief of the poor throughout this country. 
 That law was subjected, I believe, to greater assault 
 than almost any other law, and this for a long time after 
 it was enacted. It had features in it that seemed harsh, 
 and unfortunately its administration was entrusted to 
 the hands of men who seemed to wish to make it as un- 
 palatable as possible. Notwithstanding, I am free to 
 say that, looking back at it as a measure, I believe it to 
 be one which did credit to the Whig administration of 
 the day — to their courage and to their legislative and 
 administrative capacity. I mention it, therefore, as one 
 of those changes which I believe have given satisfaction 
 to the country, and which have passed during the time 
 which I am now sketching. Well, then, after that we 
 came to a very quiet, and, I may say, unsatisfactory 
 time. The Whigs had settled comfortably into their 
 places. They, I believe, have a motto, which they have 
 not publicly announced. It is this : " A place for every 
 man, and every man in his place." That means, of 
 course, every man of their own respectable party. Well, 
 at this time they became very much indisposed to go 
 further, and the satisfaction of the country with them 
 was considerably diminished. Their majorities in
 
 256 Bright's Speeches 
 
 Parliament were reduced, and, finally, they came to a 
 general election in the year 1841, but nine years after 
 the passage of that great measure of Reform. They 
 were thrown out of office by the constituencies, and 
 Parliament re-opened with a majority against them of 
 a little under a hundred votes. At this time there came 
 another great change in the State — the adoption of the 
 principle of Free Trade. This question was brought 
 before the public very much in consequence of the 
 sufferings which arose from the bad harvests that we 
 had immediately before that general election. It took 
 from the year 1838 to the year 1846 to bring about the 
 great change of the abolition of the Corn Law. Parlia- 
 ment was elected in 1841 with a majority of ninety 
 pledged to oppose the abolition of the law. Sir Robert 
 Peel was the great leader of that great party, and as 
 these men found themselves in Parliament with this 
 enormous majority, they looked down with contempt 
 upon all who were moving in that question, and con- 
 sidered that they were absolutely sure to maintain the 
 law and to maintain their places. The result shows 
 how much is to be done by continuous and disinterested 
 labour on behalf of a great cause, and by appealing to 
 the sympathies of the whole nation. In 1846, partly at 
 that moment owing, no doubt, to the failure of the 
 harvest and the difficulties which threatened from an 
 impending famine in Ireland, this vast majority melted 
 away. Men who had pledged themselves in every form 
 of language to their constituents in 1841, who had 
 attended meetings opposed to Free Trade, subscribed to 
 newspapers which opposed it, found their whole power 
 melting away, and their leader himself converted to the 
 necessity of a change ; and the change took place — a 
 change so great that there were members of both 
 Houses of Parliament, and I believe a majority of the 
 House of Lords, who believed that to them at least the 
 world was brought nearly to an end. I recollect that a 
 lady— a relative of mine — sat below the bar of the 
 House of Lords on the night when the Corn Law 
 Repeal Bill was read a second time. It was very 
 late — or, rather, early in the morning — when the
 
 Progress of the Nation 257 
 
 division was approaching, and a lady sitting near her, 
 who was a connection of some peer, spoke with him as 
 he came from the House, and she said, " How will it 
 go ?" It was just before the division, and, pointing up 
 to the clock, as it were in an agony of excitement, he 
 said, "In twenty minutes" — or in some number of 
 minutes which it would take to go to a division — " we 
 shall be no better than dead men." Well, now, the 
 Corn Law was abolished, and if they had not told the 
 farmers — those poor terrified farmers, and landlords 
 still more terrified — I am not sure that any of them 
 would ever have found it out. The country would 
 have found that it was much better off, and the people 
 would have discovered that by some power, the force of 
 which they could not perhaps understand, loaves of 
 bread and provisions to the amount of more than twenty 
 millions sterling per annum had been deposited in their 
 homes for the sustenance and enjoyment of their 
 families, and they would scarcely have known how it 
 was brought about. But we know that it was brought 
 about by the repealing of a single Act of Parliament. 
 It was not by a number of benevolent ladies and gentle- 
 men forming societies all over the country and giving 
 people alms, but it was by repealing the Corn Law — 
 by a simple act of justice, an act that was so just that I 
 have never heard a man, or have scarcely heard a man 
 deny its justice, except on something which they call 
 political considerations, which means that there were 
 political reasons why that great act of justice should 
 not be done. I recollect that a pious banker whom I 
 happened to be travelling with in the North of England, 
 admitted that it was very unjust that there should be a 
 law to make food scarce and dear, but said, " I accept 
 it because I believe it necessary to maintain the 
 hereditary aristocracy of this country." And further, 
 he said that he thought that our greatness in the eye of 
 the world depended very much upon the maintenance 
 of the wealth and power and the display of the aristo- 
 cracy of England. That is exactly the sort of reason 
 which people give. Weak-minded men are taken by 
 reasons of this kind, and they give you reasons now 
 
 R
 
 258 Bright's Speeches 
 
 that are not a bit better for opposition to many changes 
 which wiser men wish to promote, and which doubtless 
 by and by will be effected. And then results will show 
 that the reasons of those who have opposed them were 
 just as silly and just as little worth as those of my 
 fellow-traveller the pious banker. 
 
 But that question of the Corn Law was not all ; there 
 was the question of sugar. In 1840 — it is not very long 
 ago — the single article of sugar in this country cost, by 
 reason of the monopoly, not less than six millions 
 sterling more than it would have cost if you could have 
 bought it freely in the market of the world, while the 
 fall of the corn monopoly, which was the keystone of 
 the arch, let everything belonging to it and supported 
 by it down. The sugar monopoly fell, and I do not 
 now know how much more. One was connected with 
 the supply of timber from abroad ; and another, still 
 more important, was the monopoly which our ship- 
 owners had, and the abolition of which has been found 
 to be injurious, I believe, to nobody, and greatly advan- 
 tageous to the whole country. When all this was done 
 the course was perfectly easy, for our Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer has had nothing but driving downhill 
 since that time. Once we had a tariff, that upon which 
 Sir Robert Peel began his reform, with 1,000 — I am 
 not sure that there were not 1,200 items on which 
 duties were raised at the ports, some of them articles 
 which, when the names were read off in the House of 
 Commons, raised a general laugh, for people turned to 
 each other and asked what they were. There were 
 things so minute that nobody in the House had ever 
 heard of, and yet they were articles upon which duties 
 were levied. Then the tariff was simplified, until now 
 there are perhaps only twelve or fifteen articles upon 
 which duties are levied. All other things can come 
 freely into the country ; we have made a very great 
 clearance, and the result has been that we have obtained 
 fiscal reforms which are more comprehensive and more 
 just to the country than probably have ever been made 
 in the same time by any other Government in any 
 country in the world. I do not think those who were 
 most active in promoting these changes were regarded
 
 Progress of the Nation 259 
 
 by certain people with much more confidence than 
 before. But the changes were made, and they worked 
 well for the nation. 
 
 We may now come down to one or two other topics, 
 one of them the question of the treaty with France. 
 We were taught when we were children — I was born 
 just before the termination of that monstrous and wicked 
 war which was so long carried on with France — at any 
 rate, the school-books of those days were filled with 
 charges against the French people. The representa- 
 tions on the stage, I am told by those who frequented 
 theatres at the time, were to the same effect, and there 
 was a general feeling that there was some risk to 
 Englishmen if they became too well acquainted with 
 the French, and if by any possibility they should learn 
 to believe that the French were not the natural enemies 
 of Englishmen. Well, my friend Mr. Cobden — who, as 
 you know, is occasionally mentioned with very abusive 
 language by several of the great instructors of the 
 press — thought that the Emperor of the French and 
 some persons who are occasionally consulted by him 
 would be very glad to have more intimate relations 
 with the people of this country, and he went over to 
 Paris. He saw the Emperor, and discussed the matter 
 with him. He found the Emperor most willing, and 
 not only most willing, but most anxious that the people 
 of the two countries should be introduced to each other 
 through the medium of extended commerce, and that 
 his object was — for I heard him say it — that the people 
 being thus united together, it should not be in the power 
 of rulers and statesmen to induce them hereafter to 
 enter into those dreadful struggles which, now we look 
 back upon them, we can say have for centuries dis- 
 figured the history of the two -nations. Now, there is 
 another fact which ought to have some interest, but 
 which I shall merely mention, that it was not— -and I 
 was glad to see it noticed by Mr. Milner Gibson at 
 Ashton the other day — it was not one of your official 
 diplomatists who effected that treaty ; it was done solely 
 by my friend Mr. Cobden, who, as the cricketers would 
 say, got it entirely off his own bat : and I venture 
 
 r 2
 
 260 Bright's Speeches 
 
 to say that as long as the history of England and 
 France is read it will be read of him that he, a simple 
 citizen of this country, interested in its welfare, inter- 
 ested in peace between France and England, inter- 
 ested in the spread of great and enlightened principles 
 and commerce throughout the world, that he went over 
 to Paris, and there negotiated with the Emperor of the 
 French a treaty, which, I believe, is the most important 
 document of the kind that has ever been signed by the 
 rulers of any two nations in Europe. 
 
 From this I pass to the last of these reforms that I 
 shall touch upon, and that is to another kind of freedom, 
 in which no persons in Parliament were more actively 
 engaged than Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Cobden, and 
 myself — that is, the freedom of the press. You pay a 
 penny for your admirable newspaper in this town, and 
 when doing so you are not conscious, perhaps, of what 
 happened only a very short time ago. The paper on 
 which it was printed, say ten years ago, had a stamp of 
 a penny upon it, the paper itself did not cost probably 
 more than a halfpenny, and therefore there was over 
 ioo or perhaps 200 per cent, of taxation upon the paper 
 before our friend Mr. Jaffray could touch it. Well, 
 then — I am not speaking now of the stamp — there was 
 also a tax of, at one time, threepence, and at another 
 time three-halfpence per pound upon paper itself at the 
 paper-mill. This unfortunate article seemed to be 
 thought the greatest of all nuisances and trespassers. 
 The moment it was made out of the meanest rags and 
 rubbish, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put a tax 
 upon it of three-halfpence per pound : and the moment 
 it was sent to the newspaper office, unless the manu- 
 facturer had already done it, the proprietor must send it 
 to the Government office to have a stamp of a penny 
 put upon it ; and when he ran it through his machine 
 and printed the columns of letterpress, if he put in a 
 short paragraph that a cook wanted a place, or that any- 
 body wanted a tutor, although it was only three words 
 or only one word, it was an advertisement, and for 
 every one of these he must pay a tax of 15. 6d. to the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. The newspapers were, as
 
 Progress of the Nation 261 
 
 you know, not very long ago many times the price that 
 they are at present. People said then that we had a 
 free press. We denied it, and we asserted that unless 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer would undertake really 
 to free the newspaper press there was not a single 
 thing else that he undertook to do which we would not 
 oppose. Therefore, by getting the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer into a difficulty of this nature, and by abso- 
 lutely insisting upon an act of justice, we used the skill 
 and ingenuity with which Mr. Gibson conducted that 
 question in Parliament to obtain what we desired. 
 Now, what has followed ? We have a gentleman so 
 eminent as the Speaker of the House of Commons the 
 other day, at a meeting, expressing himself in terms of 
 the very highest commendation and admiration of the 
 penny newspapers in this country. But what did all the 
 people say who opposed us ? They said first of all, 
 " You will steal everything from the Times.'" Well, I 
 do not think anything else could by possibility make a 
 paper so bad as stealing everything from the Times. I 
 recollect the prophecies of the Globe newspaper, which 
 I believe values itself at ^d. or 5^., while other papers 
 quite as good and as large are selling for a penny. 
 The Globe newspaper declared that these cheap papers 
 would do nothing but crib paragraphs and news from 
 the respectable press, which they would not acknow- 
 ledge. Why, the Globe newspaper itself is made up 
 almost entirely of " scissor-work," and I have seen in it 
 little paragraphs which it has copied from the penny 
 press of the morning, and which it has copied without 
 acknowledgment. I venture, then, to say that every 
 prophecy of the opponents of a free press, so far, has 
 failed ; and that whether it be in quality of writing, in 
 elevated and moral tone, in the industry with which 
 facts and news are collected and offered to the people, I 
 believe that the newspapers which are sold at a penny 
 will bear comparison with any of their dearer neigh- 
 bours, and that there is but one opinion throughout the 
 whole kingdom — except it be in the mind of some 
 particular man who never could find out anything him- 
 self, and never could be taught anything by others, —
 
 262 Bright's Speeches 
 
 there is, I say, but 'one opinion as to the inestimable 
 benefit which the freedom of the press has conferred 
 upon this country. Is it not a very curious thing that 
 every one of the things I have mentioned is now almost 
 by general consent admitted to have been a just and 
 beneficial change ? You can hardly find a Tory now. 
 It is a blessed thing, but somehow or other either the 
 Tories die off, or they change themselves, or they do 
 certainly take a little different colour. You can hardly 
 find any of them now but will admit that a great 
 number of these changes — some will admit that all of 
 them — have been wise changes, and beneficial to the 
 country. And yet it is very odd that the very same men 
 at this moment set up to be authorities in politics. 
 They opposed every one of these changes ; they have 
 obstructed every one to the extent of their power ; they 
 have told you at every step that every change was de- 
 structive to the best interests of the country, and they 
 have rushed to the poll with what I should call a frantic 
 blindness of patriotism to put off the good day when 
 these beneficial changes should take effect. And, 
 having been wrong in every single thing for twenty-five 
 years back — and if they have lived as long, for fifty years 
 back— at this very moment, without a blush, without 
 the slightest appearance of difficulty or embarrassment, 
 they will call upon a constituency now to believe that 
 they are the men, and that wisdom will die with them. If 
 there had been no violent party spirit, if these men would 
 have given themselves, if they were capable of it, to 
 some intelligent thought on these questions, is it not 
 very likely that many of these changes might have been 
 made at an earlier period, and that the public might 
 have had, say for twenty years, the advantage of these 
 reforms, which, owing to the obstinacy of opponents, 
 they have only enjoyed, it may be, for five or ten years ? 
 I suppose there are not many of this class of gentlemen 
 here-— or else I might try to improve the occasion, and 
 see if I could not reach— reach, as the preachers say 
 —their intellect and their conscience. There are other 
 questions to which these men might turn their minds if 
 they like, unless they have been so long standing still,
 
 Progress of the Nation 263 
 
 that, like a weather-vane, they have become rusted, and 
 cannot turn at all. 
 
 There is a question that has been discussed of late 
 years, and that will come on again for urgent discussion 
 before long — the question of Parliamentary Reform. It 
 is thirty years or more since the Reform Bill passed. 
 It was not a good Bill, though it was a great Bill when 
 it passed ; and to show you how insufficient it was, I 
 have already mentioned that in nine years after 
 passed, so entirely had the old governing class re- 
 covered from its fall, that it entered Parliament in 1841 
 with a majority of ninety. And when we know that it 
 leaves an immense number of small boroughs that are 
 assailable and open to management, and that it leaves 
 the county constituency as it now is, in many counties 
 entirely in the hands of three or four or half a dozen 
 landed proprietors, and that it shuts out the great body 
 of the people from the franchise everywhere, it is not to 
 be wondered at that we should have found ourselves, 
 nine years after the passing of the Reform Bill, in a 
 minority in the House of Commons, and at this moment 
 in a position when nobody seems to know exactly 
 whether there is a majority or a minority. What has 
 taken place since 1832 ? Surely, nearly all the changes 
 I have mentioned. What else has taken place ? Not 
 these changes only, and not those changes only which 
 Mr. Wright has said have taken place in Birmingham, 
 but similar changes all over the kingdom. Have not 
 your schools extended to a great degree ? Have not 
 the habits of industry and frugality become more promi- 
 nent ? Is not the country more peaceful ? Is not the 
 law generally better observed? And are not magis- 
 trates and all men in authority held in better regard 
 than they were thirty or forty years ago ? Don't we all 
 feel that there is a more kind, generous, merciful, and 
 just spirit spread amongst the people, and animating 
 great masses of them ? And unless we are prepared to 
 say that the English Constitution is not a Constitution 
 by which representative Government is favoured ; that 
 we have no right to a share in the administration of the 
 affairs of our country, but that a small, a powerful, and
 
 264 Bright's Speeches 
 
 a rich class acting upon a small portion of the middle 
 class, and banded so that their influence becomes almost 
 irresistible, should appropriate the Constitution ; and 
 that the Government shall be handed over to them for 
 the furthering of their special purposes — unless we are 
 prepared to say this, we have no right to call ourselves 
 free men living in a free country — unless we determine 
 before long that there shall be another substantial 
 measure of reform. 
 
 The other night I referred to the question of emigra- 
 tion from this country. I am told, though I have not 
 seen it in print, that a newspaper, which does not care 
 to improve its character by being fair to those whom it 
 judges, declared that I put myself up as an advertising 
 agent for the American Government. Let me tell you 
 that the advertising agents, the practical advertising 
 agents to the American Government, are those who 
 refuse to do justice to the English people. Mr. Ban- 
 croft, the best historian of his country, has declared in 
 words that Europe should never forget that the history 
 of the colonization of America is the history of the 
 crimes of Europe. We know perfectly well how it was 
 that those noble men who colonized New England — 
 and whose spirit yet lives on that continent, and is now, 
 I will venture to say, directing the energies of the 
 American Government in the preservation of their 
 Union and in the establishment of freedom from the 
 pole to the gulf — first settled in that country. We 
 know that those men were driven from this country by 
 the oppressions of despotic monarchs and of an insolent 
 Church. And we know that from that time to this 
 there have landed in the United States millions of 
 persons, who have emigrated from the United Kingdom, 
 the largest portion of them from Ireland. I have said 
 before, and it is well to say it on every suitable occasion, 
 that such has been the conduct of the Government of 
 England to the people of Ireland, that wherever the 
 Irishman plants his foot in any foreign land, having 
 quitted for ever his native soil, there he stands as an 
 enemy of England, whom nothing can reconcile to this 
 country. But if the Government of England in Ireland
 
 Progress of the Nation 265 
 
 had been a just Government, if it had been just even 
 since the time of the Union, sixty years ago, all that 
 hostile feeling might have been cleared away long since, 
 and Irishmen would have been as loyal and contented 
 as any class of Englishmen. And if they had found it 
 necessary from any cause to transport themselves to the 
 United States, you would have found in the United 
 States the feeling that they had not been driven by 
 injustice from their native land, but that, turning back 
 to that land with the loving, longing gaze of patriots, 
 they might have said : 
 
 " Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 This is my own, my native land ?" 
 
 But now — now under the feelings created by a long 
 course of misgovernment, continued from father to son, 
 directed against their social, their political, and their 
 religious feeling, there is hardly an Irishman in the 
 United States who is not the victim of any man who 
 chooses to make political capital by exciting hostility 
 against England. There can be no just government of 
 Ireland until you abolish the Irish Protestant Church. 
 There have been no feelings in the history of the workd 
 that have so stirred men's love, and so stirred their 
 hate, as the feelings connected with their religious 
 belief. There was never an act at once so unjust and 
 so unwise as that of the English Government when it 
 maintained a Church in Ireland that never could call 
 within its fold more than about one-tenth of the whole 
 people, and which from the day of its establishment to 
 this has probably never been able to convert — I was 
 going to say, a single real Catholic to Protestantism — 
 but which, having found Catholicism a belief of the 
 people, has made it also a patriotism. For every 
 Catholic has not only had the ordinary reasons for 
 adhering to his Church which every man has who learns 
 the doctrines and teachings of his religion from his 
 mother, but he has this further reason — that the Church 
 which is sought to be imposed upon him is imposed upon 
 him by another nation, and, to him, by an alien Govern- 
 ment. And, therefore, every feeling of reverence for
 
 266 Bright's Speeches 
 
 God, and every feeling of self-respect which he has as a 
 free man, makes him resolve that he never will come 
 within the pale of such a Church as that. 
 
 And, now, but one more matter, which it would be 
 wrong to pass by at this moment. This is the situation 
 of foreign affairs, and the doctrine of non-intervention. 
 The people of England must, and will before long, make 
 up their minds on this great question — whether they 
 will accept the doctrine of non-intervention in its entirety 
 and completeness, or whether they will allow it when it 
 is convenient, and repudiate it when their passions have 
 been a little stirred. Bear in mind that one of two 
 eminent Ministers of the present Cabinet certainly was 
 in office as long ago as some years before I was born. 
 He comes down, then, from a generation that is almost 
 passed away. Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, is 
 that man. Lord Russell, though not so old, also goes 
 back into that early time. They are both naturally — I 
 am not imputing it to them as a crime, because, possibly, 
 it was what they could not help — but they naturally 
 have been saturated with those theories and doctrines 
 upon the question of non-intervention and foreign affairs 
 which prevailed near the beginning of this century, and 
 they may fancy in their old age that what was taught 
 them and practised in their youth is right now, and was 
 right during the time of the Italian war, I mean the war 
 between Austria and France, in which, it is thought, 
 Italy gained much in the direction of liberty. I went 
 one day in the session of Parliament during which these 
 events occurred to spend an hour with the late Lord 
 Aberdeen. He had been Prime Minister, and Foreign 
 Secretary for many years. He was a man of very 
 sound judgment, of great moderation, and of many good 
 qualities, which his political opponents did not always 
 give him credit for. He spoke about the war which was 
 then beginning between the French and the Austrians, 
 and he said that when he was young there was not a 
 statesman in England of any party who would have 
 hesitated for one single moment to go into that war on 
 the side of Austria against France, with the view of 
 preventing the increase of French influence in Italy and
 
 Progress of the Nation 267 
 
 in Europe. But he said that he hoped, and he thought 
 it was probably true, that statesmen had grown wiser 
 since that time. Well, we did not go into the war in 
 Italy ; our Government did not take sides with Austria, 
 nor yet with France. The people generally, I think, 
 were rather in favour of France, because they thought 
 that France was in favour of freedom in Italy. But, 
 suppose these statesmen of the old time, of Lord Aber- 
 deen's youth, had carried out their principles and had 
 gone into that war, it is difficult to see that things would 
 have been any better than they now are in Italy ; it is 
 not difficult to see that probably they would have been 
 much worse, and that no doubt thousands of our fellow- 
 countrymen might have been lying in their graves on 
 the continent of Europe ; that great sea-fights might 
 have taken place with great destruction ; that the 
 French Treaty certainly would not have existed, and 
 that the harmony which now exists between the peoples 
 of these two great nations might have been intercepted 
 for many years. I won't go back to the Russian war ; 
 you know the part I took in regard to that. I have, on 
 my part, to thank it for only one thing, and that is, that 
 it is owing, 1 believe, to the part I took in that question 
 that I now stand here in this borough as one of your 
 Parliamentary representatives. But how were you 
 dragged, or beguiled, or excited into that war ? By 
 the impulse of these two aged Ministers. They could 
 not keep themselves out of it. I am not imputing to 
 them other than honourable motives, but saturated as 
 they were — I say saturated — with the doctrines of a by- 
 gone time, a time, I hope, never to return, they fancied 
 it was the duty of this small island to take care of a 
 rotten Government and of a country devastated by the 
 oppressions and excesses of that Government. The 
 result was that amongst the various contending nations, 
 at least four hundred thousand men's lives were sacri- 
 ficed, and probably more than as many millions of 
 treasure were thrown entirely away ; and instead of the 
 affairs of Europe being settled on a permanent basis — 
 that is always their cry — you find that the affairs of 
 Europe at this moment are not settled on a permanent
 
 268 Bright's Speeches 
 
 basis, and that Europe has doubled the armed men and 
 doubled the military expenditure that it had before that 
 war. 
 
 And now we come to another topic, and that is the 
 question between Denmark and Germany. I am one 
 of those, I hope, who sympathize even with men who 
 wear crowns when they are in trouble, and the difficulty 
 which has overtaken the King of Denmark does not 
 appear to have been a difficulty of his own seeking. 
 There has been a difficulty for many years with regard 
 to those Duchies. It is not yet settled, though perhaps 
 it may be settled. But I do not know ; I doubt ex- 
 tremely whether anything that England could do by 
 sending 25,000 men into Schleswig, and by putting a 
 fleet in the North Sea, or the Baltic, or Adriatic, would 
 permanently settle that question. You may rely upon 
 this, that questions of that nature are only permanently 
 settled when they are brought to a conclusion by those 
 alone who are deeply interested in them. We are not 
 deeply interested in this question — -I do not mean inter- 
 ested in the sense of the Prince of Wales marrying a 
 daughter of the King of Denmark. I think nothing 
 would be more unfortunate than that, whilst the mem- 
 bers of the Royal Family are not allowed to marry 
 from English citizens, they should, in marrying abroad, 
 therefore embroil Englishmen in the quarrels of foreign 
 countries. I can imagine nothing more likely to make 
 Englishmen doubt whether Royal alliances can have 
 any pleasant interest to them than if such a course is 
 taken. We see it reported in the papers that the 
 Guards have had orders, and that the fleet is to come 
 to some place or other. These, I fancy, are mostly at 
 present paragraphs put out as feelers or paragraphs of 
 bluster, intended to operate upon Austria or Prussia. 
 But I cannot understand the object of Austria and 
 Prussia, unless it is that they are afraid of a revolu- 
 tion in Germany, and are therefore taking a lead in 
 great operations which may save them from any un- 
 pleasant change which may be impending. But if I 
 were speaking to members of her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, I should remind them of this, that in 1853-4
 
 Progress of the Nation 269 
 
 there were members of that Government, who talked 
 of peace, and for peace. In Mr. Gladstone's speech at 
 Manchester the burden was a hearty wish for peace, 
 and peace doubtless was the wish of the Queen and the 
 Prince. And yet the Government went into war. They 
 take steps which they fancy do not mean war, but they 
 are gradually brought nearer and nearer to the verge 
 of it, and then under some pretence that they have 
 gone so far that they cannot honourably retreat, they 
 plunge over into the abyss. On that occasion I believe 
 there were members of the Cabinet who had not the 
 slightest idea that they were going into war. 
 
 And that leads me to speak about a curious custom of 
 the Cabinet on which the people generally are ignorant, 
 but concerning which I now feel it my duty to inform 
 them. When a Government is made, a list is drawn 
 up of about thirteen gentlemen who are to form a 
 Cabinet, and who are summoned to the meetings of the 
 Cabinet. But there is an inner Cabinet, and it is 
 generally compounded of the Prime Minister and the 
 Foreign Secretary, and occasionally one other Minister. 
 While Lord Derby was a member of Sir Robert Peel's 
 Cabinet, he knew nothing whatever of a most important 
 memorandum or understanding which had been drawn 
 up on an agreement come to between Sir Robert Peel, 
 the Duke of Wellington, and the late Emperor Nicholas 
 of Russia. Until he came to be Prime Minister he had 
 never seen that memorandum, and never knew of its 
 existence. Well, I have been told that there was an 
 attempt made when Lord Derby's Government was 
 formed to keep the whole of that interior Cabinet in the 
 hands of himself and Lord Malmesbury, the Foreign 
 Minister, but that a certain other Minister, who knew 
 the responsibility which attaches to the deliberations of 
 such an inner Cabinet, would have nothing to do with 
 the responsibility of its great decisions unless he were 
 made acquainted with all the facts and with everything 
 belonging to them. And, therefore, the secret Cabinet 
 in Lord Derby's Government was composed of three, 
 and not of two members. But take this present Cabinet. 
 I will undertake to say, by what I know of what has
 
 270 Bright's Speeches 
 
 been done on past occasions, that a great deal of the 
 most delicate business of foreign affairs is conducted 
 almost entirely by Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell. 
 Do not let me be supposed to insinuate that Lord 
 Palmerston has not had a most lengthened experience 
 in foreign affairs, and do not let me be supposed to say 
 that Lord Russell is not anxious to have the affairs of 
 the country transacted in such a way as he thinks will 
 best serve the interests of the nation. But there may 
 be members of that Cabinet at this moment who are 
 not aware of the steps that are being taken from day to 
 day, of despatches that are being written, of suggestions 
 that are being thrown out, and of resolutions that are 
 partly come to, and which being once arrived at and 
 determined upon by the Prime Minister and the Foreign 
 Secretary, will plunge the country in war. If there be 
 any member of that Cabinet who is not in that secret 
 knowledge, and he finds that these matters are advanc- 
 ing towards war, let me beseech him, as he values the 
 price of his conscience during his lifetime, and his 
 reputation also with his fellow-men, which is of much 
 less real value, that he will take care to know every- 
 thing that is done, that he will not be made the partner, 
 it may be in great errors, it may be in great crimes, 
 which he and his country, if the war should come, 
 may have occasion to regret. I have not seen a paper 
 written out of London which argues in favour of war, 
 and I do not think the London press generally has yet 
 stimulated the country to violent action. But let us 
 here — we, the people everywhere — have our eyes wide 
 open at this moment, and by every means in our power 
 show that, while we are willing to sympathize with any 
 monarch, it may be, or any State under any difficulties of 
 any kind, we also consider it our duty in the present 
 and future interest of the people of these islands to 
 show in addition that, looking over our past history for 
 the last two hundred years, we have come to the fixed 
 determination that the power of England shall not be 
 exerted, the blood of England shall not be spilt, the 
 wealth created by the toils of Englishmen shall not be 
 squandered, except it be in some great cause in which
 
 Progress of the Nation 271 
 
 the solid and permanent interests of this country are 
 engaged. 
 
 I fear you will think I have been preaching you a 
 too long political sermon. I wish this to be a free 
 country — not to be afraid of anything that is good 
 because they say it is French, or of something good 
 because they say it is American, or to stand by some- 
 thing that is clearly evil because they say it is old. A 
 very eminent writer, not long ago, said that England 
 to a large extent was still as it were fettered in the 
 grave-clothes of the middle ages. But we have a com- 
 petition to run with other nations, and, most of all, with 
 that nation which is now distracted and in the throes 
 of a great Civil War. We have also within our shores, 
 and within the limits of these islands, a great and a 
 noble people. We have within us the elements of a 
 nation far greater in the future than anything that has 
 been in the past, even in the most renowned and 
 glorious days. We can set ourselves free from the 
 prejudices and from the darkness of the past. We can 
 give to our peo.ple education, we can open up to them 
 new sources of industry, we can reduce the expenditure 
 of our Government, Ave can invite another million or 
 two of our people within the pale of the constitution, 
 and taking them, we can ask counsel of them that we 
 may assist each other in the wise government of this 
 great nation. All this we can do, and all that is wanted 
 is that in working out our political problems we should 
 take for our foundation that which recommends itself 
 to our conscience as just and moral. I have not the 
 slightest regard for that statesmanship which is divorced 
 from the morality which we say ought to guide us in 
 our private life, which we gather for a nation as for 
 individuals from the religion which we profess. Time, 
 persistent labour, fidelity to the great principles which 
 we hold and believe in, will certainly give us the victory 
 over existing evils, as similar qualities and similar con- 
 duct have given the victories which I have described 
 to you in the observations I have made. 
 
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