t:f.^,-x -v*^ -^ ^1 <>S f^? ■V. -"i^ -^ ,V-. IW-. //- ,<,.**!''^ %.. ^^' '^ .^ y rt ^ L I B RA R.Y OF THL U N I VERSITY or 1 LLl NOIS i^ieics E!iG-J3:'T'i^E2ceii filled forty times from that vast number. Yes, and at this moment I am told that outside there is an audience far gi-eater than that I now address ; whilst to-morrow momini^ there will be millions of an audience throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, anxious to know what has been done and what has been said on this 27th day of August in this great town of Birmingham. We are not here to-night to discuss the question of reform, because that is a question which we have already settled. "What we have to do is to discuss calmly our present position and our future work in reference to this great question. ^ly honourable colleague has said that the bill of the late Government was one of singular moderation. It was also a bill — I speak now only of the Fran- chise Bill — of a singular and most honest simplicity ; and that was the great reason that I felt it my duty, and that you felt it yours, to give it an honest support. I will just tell you how much and how little it proposed to give, or would have given, to the working classes of this country ; and 1 think it necessary to state this because of the argument which I intend to raise upon it. The Government produced to the House of Commons a blue book, most elaborately compiled, and as far as I know, with the exception of one point, correct and trustworthy ; but they projiosed to inform the House of the number of working men v/ho are now upon the register, and what addition would be made to that number if the bill passed. I differed entirely from their estimate, which I l)elieve to have been to a very gi-eat extent erroneous, and I think I produced facts in the House of Commons which sustained my opinion. Mr. Gladstone told us that at present there are on the borough registers in England and. Wales working men to the number of 126,000. He showed further that by the abolition of the ratepaying clauses, if there was no alteration in the £10 suffrage, there would be an addition of 60,000 electors, who, he reckoned, would all be working men ; and then he said that if the franchise was reduced from £10 to £7, there would be a further addition of 144,000, all of whom he estimated as working men. Therefore he stated that when that bill passed there would be on the borough registers of England and Wales 330,000 working men, of whom 204,000 would be new voters added by that bill. I believe that estimate was made ■w'ith perfect honesty by IMr. Gladstone, but that it was to a very large extent erroneous. I showed several boroughs, and 1 believe I might have gone through almost every borough in the United Kingdom, where the number of working men stated in the returns was at least double, and in many cases far more than double, the actual number upon the register. I estimated, also, that although the abolition of the ratepaying clauses might add 60,000 new votes, it would ))e very unfair to expect that more than one-tliird, or 20,000 of them — being ten pounders and upwards — would be of the class of working men. 1 said further that it was absurd to reckon that every man between £10 and £7 was of the class of working men, and I supposed that at least no more than two-thirds of them could be placed in that list. My estimate diftered, therefore, from Mr. Gladstone's thus far. I said that of the 12G,000 now upon the register there were not more than the half, or 63,000; instead ^ \ of there being GO, 000 admitted by the abolition of the ratepaying clause, there would not be more than 20,000; and that, instead of there being 144,000 working men admitted by the reduction of the franchise from £10 to £7, it was a fair estimate to take two-thirds of that number, or 96,000. My opinion therefore, was, that when that bill passed, if it should pass, there would be upon the borough registers of England and Wales, not 330, 000 of working men, but 170,000, and that the bill would not admit 20-i,000 but only ] 10,000 of that class. Take either my estimate of 116,000 or Mr. Glad- stone's estimate of 204,000 as the number of working men to be added by the late bill to the register, and I will ask you what, after all, does it all come to ? 204, 000 working men according to the Government estimate, 116,000 according to mine, and in addition about 200,000 new voters added to the counties under a £14 franchise, who must of necessity be almost altogether outside the working classes. That was the bill which my honour- able colleague has described as one of singular moderation. Out of five or six millions of men in the United Kingdom who are not now enfranchised, the whole number of the working classes to be admitted in the boroughs of England and Wales v,'as only 200, 000. Now that bill, so moderate that I confess I had entertained the hope that it would pass through Parliament without any gi-eat difficulty, was resisted as if it had been charged Avith all the dangerous matter which the Tory party actually attributed to it. It was intrigued against in a manner — I had almost said more base, but I will say more hateful than any measure I have seen opposed during the 23 years that I have sat in the House of Commons; and, finally, under every kind o€ false pretence, it was rejected by a small majority, and fell, an^ with itth« Government which had proposed it also fell. The reason I have given you these figures is that I want to show you the desperate resolution of the present Government, and of the party which it represents, to deny to the working classes of this country any share in its government. I am not confined to the votes of the House and the destruction of the bill, but I am able, I think, to show you by the arguments upon which the Tory party pro- ceeded that such is their determination, and it may be their unchangeable resolution. Several of the speakers to-night have referred to the slanders and calumnies heaped upon the great body of the people during the dis- cussions of the last session; and, no doubt, although his name was not mentioned, the speakers had in their minds one member of the House who virtually has no constituency — whose sole constituent, at any rate at that time, is now no longer here to partake of the strife or the contests of politics, though I presume another constituent acts and reigns in his stead. If I quote anything that Mr. Lowe said, understand me that I wish to bring no charge against him whatsoever. He has spent some years in Australia, and probaljly has voyaged round the world ; and I do not deny him the right to voyage round the world of politics — and to cast anchor in any port that may be pleasant to him. I merely intend to quote something that he said, because when it was said it was received with rapturous enthusiasm by the great party in the House who are the supporters of Lord Derby and of Mr. Disraeli. This is extracted from the Times newspaper, a paper in which, us is well known, the speaker has been for many years an eminent writer, and over wbicl;, unless reports speak untruly, he has no small degree of control, lie says : '" I have had opportunities of knowing some of the constituencies of this country ; and I ask if you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of intimi- dating — if you want impulsive, unreflecting, violent peoi)le — where would you go to look for them ? To the top or to the hottoni ? It is ridiculous to blink the fact that since the Reform Act the gi'eat corruption has been among the voters between i;'20 and £10 rental — the lodging-house and beerhouse keepers ;" '' but it is said. Only give the franchise to the artisan and then see the difference." He goes on — passing a sentence which was a classical illustration which amused the House, but which it is not necessary' to quote here. He said: "You know what sort of persons live in these small houses" — houses, of course, between £10 and £7. " We have long had ex- perience of them under the name of freemen, and it would be a good thing if they were disfranchised altogether. They were dying out of themselves, but the Government jjropose to bring them back again under another name, so that the effect of passing this bill would be, first, to increase corruption, intimidation, and all the evils that happen usually in elections ; and next that the working men of England, finding themselves in a full majority of the whole constituency, will awake to a full sense of their power, and say, * We can do better for ourselves. Don't let us any longer be cajoled at elections. Let us set up shop for ourselves. We have objects to carry as well as our neighbours, and let us unite to carry those objects. We have the machinery. We have our trades unions. We have our leaders ready. (Loud Opposition cheers, and laughter. ) We have the power of combination as we have shown over and over again, and when we have a prize to light for we will bring it to bear with tenfold more force than ever before.' " These are the sentiments which, uttered in my hearing, were received with enthusias- tic approbation by the great body of the Tory party and by the supporters of the present Government. Observe what it really means. It is that voters now between £20 rental and £'10 are so bad that if you go lower it will be something like ruin. That there will be more venality, ignorance, and drxmkenness ; and then, speaking to the House of Commons — in which the landed proprietors, or the bulk of them, have always acted as a general trades' union, where they raised the price of bread and diminished the size of the loaf as long as the people would let them — he says there will be combinations of work- ing men for their special objects, and therefore — mind, this is his conclusion — shut them out for ever; bolt the door, — say, loudly and boldly, you, the Parliament of England, to the 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of men who have now no vote, and whom we pretend to re^jresent, — " No one of you who cannot pay a rental of £10 shall ever speak by his direct representative within the Avails of this House." That is the policy which Mr. Lowe recommends. It is not important at all because Mr. Lowe recommends it. It is important oidy because it has been accepted and approved by the gi-eat Tory party in Parliament. However, I say — I who am charged with designs against the safety of the institutions of this country— I say it is a dangerous policy — a policy which in other countries where carried out has done great things. Through it crowns and coronets have somctii^.es boon lost, and I am not sui*e that it is n policy wliich can be safely maintained with us. I asked one of the most trusted and intelligent and excellent Frenchmen with whom I am acquainted, one of the most confidential friends of the dynasty of Louis Phillippe and of the Orleans family, what it was that drove that family from France, and I referred to stories of corruption amongst minis- ters and other things which had been circulated in public and in private. He said : " None of these things did it. It was the attempt of the King to govern France by a parliament that represented an insignificant minority of the people, and which parliament he thought he could perpetually manage by a judicious distribution of patronage." On the principle of governing this country by a Parliament elected by an insignificant minority of the people, Lord Derby conies into office, and judging from the speeches and the votes of the last session of Parliament, his party intends as long as possible to govern upon that principle and that policy. Working men in this hall, I wish my voice had been loud enough to have said what I am about to say to the vast multitude which we looked on this day ; but I say it to them through the press, and to all the working men of this kingdom, I say that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working classes. (Cheers, and a voice from the platform, "We accept the challenge.") The course taken in London the other day by the police, and it had almost been by the military, is an illustration of the doctrines and the principles of the Derby administration. They reckon nothing of the constitution of their country — a constitution which has no more regard to the crown or to the aristocracy than it has to the people— a constitution which regards the House of Commons fairly repre^nting all the nation, as important a part of the governmental system of this king- dom as either the House of Lords or the throne itself. If they thus despise the constitution they likewise despise the claims of five millions or six millions who are unrepresented. You may work, you may pay taxes, you may serve ia the army, and fight ; 70,000 or more of your brethren are now living under tlje burning sun of India, and twice as many more are serving in the ranks in different parts of the world ; and you, the great body of the people from whom these men are dra^vn. are not considered worthy to do so simple an act as to give a vote in your great town for your present or any future mem- bers. You are to have no vote, no share in the Government ; the country you live in is not to be your country. You are like the Coolies or the Chinese who are imported into the West Indies or California, You are to work, but you are not to take root in the country, or to considerjthe countrj'' as your country, and, worse than all this, in addition to this refusal of the commonest right of the constitution, you are insulted by the cheers which a great party have given to the language which 1 have read to you to-night. You are to be told that you are so ignorant and so venal, so drunken, so impulsive, so unreflecting, and so disorderly that it is not even safe to skim of!" as it were the very cream of you to the number of 116,000, or it may be of 204,000, and to admit them to a vote for members of the House of Com- mons. This is the Tory theory. This is the faith of Lord Derby and his I)arty, and I maintain that I am not saying a word that is an exaggeration of tlie truth, for I have heard that party over and over fkgain vociferously L 6 cheer sentiments such as I have clescril)etl. The Government which has been overturned was a very different Government. Lord Russell had no fear of freedom. He could much more easily be persuaded to give up, and he would much more willingly abandon for ever the name of Russell than he would give up, his hereditary love of freedom. The Government, which was led by Earl Russell in one House and by Mr. Gladstone in the other, was founded and acted upon the principle of trust and confidence in the people. Some said there was not much diflference between the Derby Govermnent and the Russell Government. Lord Derby asked Lord Clanndon to take office in his Government. There was something charming in the very audacity of the effrontery of Lord Derby. Lord Clarendon was an eminent minister of the Govenmient that brought in a bill which the Tory party declared to be sub- versive of the constitution ; and Lord Derby asks Lord Clarendon to keep the Foreign-office in the new Government ! The Government of Lord Derby in the House of Commons sitting all in a row reminds me very much of a number of amusing and ingenious gentlemen whom I daresay some of you have seen and listened to. I mean the Christy I\Iiustrels. The Christy iMinstrels, if I am not misinformed, are, when they are clean washed, white men ; but they come before the audience as black as the blackest negroes, and by this transformation it is expected that their jokes and songs will be more amusing. The Derby minstrels pretend to be Liberal and white ; but the fact is if you come nearer and examine them closely you will find them to be just as black and curly as the Tories have ever been. I do not know, and I will not pretend to say, which of them it is that plays the banjo and which the bones. But I have no doubt that, in their manoeuvres to keep in office during the comuig session, we shall know something more about them than we do at present; they are, in point of fact, when they pretend to be Liberal, mere usurpers and impostors. Their party "sdll not alloAv them to be liberal, and the party exists only upon the principle upon which they have acted in all their past history of resisting and rejecting every proposition of a liberal character that has been submitted to them. What is this Derby principle of shutting out more than five-sixths of all the people from the exercise of constitutional rights ? H any of you take ship to Canada you will find the Derby principle utterly repudiated. But in Canada there is no uprooting of institutions, and no destruction of property, and there is no absence of order or of loyalty. If you go to Australia you ^^dll find there that the Derby principle is unknown, and yet there reigns order as in this country, contentment with the institutions of the colonies, and a regard for law and projjerty. If you go to those greatest and most glorious colonies of this country, the United States of America, there you find a people exhibiting all the virtues which belong to the greatest nations on the face of the earth ; there you find a people passing through a tremendous war and a tremendous revolution with a conduct and success, with a generosity and a magnanimity which have attracted and aroused the admiration of the world; and if you go to Europe you find in the republic of Switzerland, in the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, in Norway and Sweden, in France, and now you are about to witness it in Germany, a -wide extension of the franchise, hitherto, in this country, in oin' time, nuknown; and neither emperor, king, nor noble believes that his authority or his interests, or the greatness or hapinness of any one of those countries will be jeopardised by the free admission of the people to constitutional rights. In Germany, the vote is to be given to every man of 25 years of age and upwards. Let them propose to do the same here, and then we shall not be in advance of the great State of North Germany which is noAv being established. But what is it we are coming to in this country ? Why, that that which is being rapidly accepted in almost all parts of the world is being persistently and obstinately refused here in England, the home of freedom, the mother of parliaments. Yet in this England live millions of growai men, representing more than 20,000,000 of our population, are to be permanently denied that which makes the only ilifference between despotism and freedom all the world over. I venture to say that this cannot last very long. How do we stand at this moment 'I The noble and illustrious lady who sits upon the throne — she whose gentle hand wields the sceptre over that wide empire of which we are the heart and centime — she was not afraid of the Franchise Bill which the Government introduced last session. Seven times, I think, by her owti lips or by her pen, she has recommended to Parliament the admission of a large number of working men to the Parliamentary franchise. If this proposition was destructive, would not the Queen discover that fact ? If the bill of the last session had been a pernicious bill, would the 30, 000, 000 of people of the United Kingdom not have been able to produce one single public meeting in condemnation of it ? The middle class in our towns are by a vast majority in favour of it. All the middle class of Birmingham have sympathised with the great proceedings of this day, and I doubt not that by-and-bye we shall see in the populous districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire assemblies rivalling those which have been held in London and Birmingham, and if we go to the House of Commons — that House elected so much by landlord compulsion in the counties, and by corruption, intimidation, and tumult in the boroughs — do not suppose that I am charging that House of Commons with faults that it does not itself understand and acknowledge : — have you read the report of the proceedings at the commission for Yarmouth ? Did you read that a late member for that borough is said to have spent £70,000 to maintain his seat ? Did you read that one gentleman, an inferior partner in a brewery, con- tributed £4, 000 for the election of his partner, and that another gentleman knowing nothing of that borough goes down there and supplies £6,000 to fight a contest spread then only over a few daj^s? and remember that when Yarmouth or any other borough is thus brought before the public it is only a sample of a very considerable sack — and that for every borough which is thus exposed there are probably 10 or 20 other boroughs which are to a very large extent m the very same condenmation. Notwithstanding this, if we go to the House of Commons, we iind the Parliament of England at this moment about equally divided, and that half the House was in favour of the late bill. If that be so, what is wanted in this poising and balancing of the scale ? It only wants this, that the working men of England should heartily throw their influence iiito that side which is for their interests, and that side will prevail. You know T have preferred 8 that the franchise should be established upon what T consider to he the ancient jmicticc of the country. 1 am not afraid of the principles of the Kefonn League. I have no fear of manhood .sullorage, and no man is more a friend of the ballot than I am. It is a great cause which is offered to your notice to-night. It is a grand and noble iiag under which you are asked to enlist yourselves. What I would recommend you to do is this — and I imagine myself at this moment to be sjjcaking in the ear of every intelligent, sober, and thoughtful working man in the three kingdoms — let us try to move on together ; let us not si)lit hairs on this question ; let us do as your fathers did thirty-four years ago ; let us have associations everywhere ; let every workshop and factory be a reform association ; let there be in every one of them a correspondent, or a secretary who shall enrol members and assist this great and noble cause. 1 would recommend that the passages 1 have read from that celebrated and unhappy speech should be printed upon cards, and should be hung up in every room in every factory, workshop, and clubhouse, and in every place where working men are accustomed to assemble. Let us rouse the spirit of the people against these slanderers of a great and noble nation. There will come soon another election. The working men may not be able to vote, but they can form themselves into a powerful body, and they can throw their influence in every borough on the side of the candidates who pledge themselves to the question of reform. If they do this, you may depend upon it they will change many seats, and give a certain majority for reform in the next Parliament. It may be necessary and desirable to meet Parliament again with petitions from all parts of the country, signed by numberless names. There is no effort which the constitution, which morality permits us to use, that we should leave unused and unmade for the purpose of furthering this great cause ; and let us be sure of this, that we demand only that the question of reform shall be dealt with by a Government honestly in favour of reform. The address which has been presented to me has referred to 1832. I rememljer that time well. My young heart then was stirred with the trumpet blast that sounded from your midst. There was no part of this kingdom where your voice was not heard. Let it sound again. Stretch out your hands to your country- men in every part of the three kingdoms, and ask them to join you in a great and righteous effort on behalf of that freedom which has been so long the boast of Englishmen, but which the majority of Englishmen have never yet possessed. I shall esteem it an honour which my words cannot describe, and which even in thought I cannot measure, if the population which I am permitted to represent should do its full duty in the great struggle which is before us. Remember the great object for which we strive. (Jare not for calumnies and lies. Our object is this — to restore the British constitution in all its fulness, with all its freedom, to the British people. SPEECHES AT MANCHESTER, On the 2i:th of September, in the Free-trade Hall, Manchester, which was crowded almost to sulibcation by upwards of 5,000 persons, Mr. Bright was presented with an Address by the Reform League recently established in that city. In accepting it, i\Ir. Bright spoke as follows : — I was not aware when T was invited to attend this meeting that anything different from the ordinary course of proceedings would take place. I v/as not informed that I should be honoured by the presentation of any address. I accept this address with many thanks for the kindness which you have show^l me ; at the same time 1 accept it with something like fear and trembling, because of the mighty responsibility which by this address you would throw upon me. I have never had any ambition for leadership ; I do not feel myself to have fitness for such an office. I have worked hitherto wheresoever I chanced to be, whether in the ranks or in the front ; and vrithout pledging myself to undertake all that this address asks of me to undertake, and perform, I may, however, freely pledge mj^self to this, that wherever T find men willing to work for human freedom and human happiness, I trust I shall be ready to take my part with tffem. And now, as my eye has rested upon this wonderful assembly, I have thought it not wrong to ask myself whether there is any question that is gi'eat, that is sufficient, that is noble, that has called us together to-night, and I have come to the conclusion that great as is this meeting, and transcendantly great the meeting which was held in the middle of the day, that the question which has brought us together is worthy of our assembl}' axd worthy of every effort we can make. We are met for the purpose, so far as lies in our power, of widening the boundaries and making more stable the foundations of the freedom of the country in which we live. We are not as our fathers were 200 years ago, called upon to do battle with the Crown; we have no dynasty to complain of, no royal family to dispossess. In our day the wearer of the crown of England is in favour of freedom. For on many separate occasions, as you all know, the Queen has strongly, as strongly as became he]* station, urged upon Parliament the extension of the franchise of the peoj)le. Parliament has been less liberal than the Crown, and time after time these recommendations have been disregarded, and the offers of the monarch have been rejected and denied. But no more of that now; and it is not our business to-night to assail the hereditary branch of the legis- lature — the House of Peers. For my share, I cannot but think that if there are dangers ahead for the House of Lords they are dangers not so much from without as from within. Its foes in my view are those of its own household. It stands in the high place of a senate, but it too much abdicates the duties of a senate ; it gives its votes, its power, its proxies into the hands of one 10 man, and he often, and as at present, is not by any means the wisest of men. Unfortunately for that House it does almost nothing; it does not even debate freely, and the session will pass and you scarcely hear any discussion in that House which is calculated to instruct the people on political subjects. I sometimes fear that it is no longer a temple of honour, the path to which leads through the temple of virtue. It has become too much the refuge for worn-out members of the House of Commons; it becomes every year more numerous, without, I fear, becoming more useful, and unless it can wake itself up to the great duties of a senate, decay and darkness will settle upon it. Some of its members may read what I say. I beg to assure them that in these few observ'atious I am speaking in no unfriendly spirit of the House of Lords. But we have a distinct purpose to-night, and our purpose is this, to restore the representation of the people, to make the House of Commons, the House which professes to represent the conmion people, a reality and no longer a sham. Now, the facts of our representation are simple, the im- portant facts can be stated in about two sentences. I think at every reform meeting they should be restated, and they should fix themselves in the mind of every reformer throughout the country. 1 am charged with telling things that everybody knows; well, if we tell them often enough everybody will know. This is a fact, and it is worth mentioning, that there are seven millions of groAvn-up men responsible to the laws in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; that of these about one million and a quarter are on the list of voters; that exclusive of i)aupers and exclusive of criminals — though I am sorry to mention these two classes in the same sentence — ex- clusive of these, to whom no man proposes to give the franchise, there are five millions of men in the United Kingdom who have no votes. Of the million and a quarter who have votes the counties take up about 700,000, and the boroughs about 550,000, Kow, 1 shall say that which some men will contradict, but which I venture to say is true, when I declare that for the most part the county representation in this country is not a popidar representation in any honest sense of that term. We luiow that with a franchise of £50 occupation and the freehold franchise added to it, that the great body of the people in every county is excluded from the elective franchise. Well, I regard the county re^jresentation to a very large extent as a dead body tied to the living body of our borough representation. I believe it will become less so. In Ireland there are some^ree counties ; in Scotland there are some, and there will be more. But still, taking the county representation as a whole, it is in a most unsatisfactory condition. Well, but, of the boroughs where there is life and where there is some freedom, what is their condition ? Only one fact. There are 145 boroughs •vvith over 20,000 inhabitants each, and they return 215 members ; there are 109 boroughs with over 20,000 of population, and they return 181 members. But look at the difference in the number of voters, the number of the popu- lation, and the amount of taxation. It is something startling and enormous. The boroughs imder 20,000 have 79,000 electors ; the boroughs over 20,000 have 485,000 electors. The boroughs under 20,000 have 1,350,000 people ; the boroughs over 20,000 have 9,305,000 people. The boroughs under 20,000 pay £367,000 in taxation ; the boroughs over 20,000 x^ay £5,240,000 11 in taxation; and yet the boroughs under 20,000 have 215 members, as against 181 members for boroughs over 20,000. Now, I am sure you will agree with me in this, that the representation which, as regards the fran- chise, shuts out five millions of men, and which, as regards distribution, leaves the state of things which I have now described, can only be faiily pictured when 1 call it a stupendous fraud upon the people. The counties — I have Lord Derby's own authority for it — the counties are politically th« hunting ground of the great landowners. Lord Derby said, "if you will teU me the politics of a few of the chief lando^vners in the county I will tell you the politics of the county members." The boroughs, what are they? Manchester knows no bribery, nor does Birmingham ; but of the boroughs of 20,000 population and under, how many of them are full of corruption ? There are small boroughs, such as Banbury, Tavistock, and Liskeard, where, I beheve, great honour and purity prevail ; but the bulk of these boroughs are accessible to the influence of any man who will come there with plenty of money in his pocket, and no principles or morals in his heart. In point of fact, without any exaggeraion, we may say that all the evils which are possible to uifluence an electoral system are amply provided for by the electoral laws of England . Compulsion, bi-ibery, drunkenness, lavish and disgraceful expenditure, all these not only exist but are absolutely inexntable under the state of the law which now prevails ; and I venture to say — and I never said anything in my life which I would more easily undertake to prove — that there is no remedy for this state of things where ambitious and unprincipled and rich men come into contact with small numbers of voters ; there is no remedy whatsoever but in large constituencies and tte security of the ballot. Now if I have fairly described the state of things, can we wonder at the difficulty which meets us when we have any question before Parliament ? Look back at the question of the corn laws, look back on the question of the paper duty, look back or look now on the question of our disgraceful expenditure, and you will find that on every occasion when the people ask for any reform of any kind, they have to make a desperate right for it, just as though they were wresting it not from their country- men and brothers, but from the representatives of a conquering nation. Take this last session of all — this session which has just passed over, a session ever to be remembered. The Government, headed by Lord Russell in the House of Lords, by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons — anxious to make one step forward in the direction of popular rights, brought in a bill most honest in its character, and most moderate in its dimensions. It was a bill so moderate in its dimensions, that some of us who think much more would be greater wisdom to grant, found ourselves in some difficidty in tendering to the Government our cordial support to enable them to carry that bill. Well, that bill, which I hold every man who is in favour of any reform at all had no kind of excuse for opposing — that bill was met by an opposition, I wiU say at once as malignant and as dishonest as I have ever seen given to any measure in the House of Commons. There was no artifice, there was no trick that was too mean and too base to be made use of to retard the progress of and ultimately destroy the bill, and to such an «xtent did it go that even Lord Stanley Mas induced, I know not how, I IJ kiiow not by Avliat evil S2)iiit of his party — lie avus iiuliictd to make a proposition which to my certain knowledge some among liia own party described as utterly disgraceful. The facts and the arguments on which that bill was supported and defended were not met, and never could l)o met. Another policy was adopted, and to get rid of the inconvenient argument of iigurcs, they turned round and did not hesitate to slander a whole nation. The name of a gentleman eminent in these matters has already been men- tioned. If I mention his name, or if I quote what he said, understand that 1 make no charge against him that he holds opinions which I so much dcplo: e. Any man may hold what opinions he likes, and the opinions of any i articular man in Parliament are not of very great importance. But these opinions were imijortant because they were addressed to 300 mem- bers of the party which is now in power, and by that party they were received with uproarious and universal enthusiasm. 1 do not thuik that any meeting of the working classes held during this recess should pass with- out some reference to the observations of that gentleman. Bear in mind that not only were they received with enthusiastic cheering by the Tory party, but when the Queen sent for Lord Derby and committed to him the charge of forming a new Government, he either directly, or through his patron, the owner of the boi'ough of Calne, endeavoured, as is universally liclieved, and as I believe, to prevail upon the man who had uttered these sentiments to become a member of his Government. These are some of his sentiments: — "I have had opportunities of knowing some of the constituencies in this country, and, I ask if you want venality, ignorance, di-unkemiess, and the means of intimidation ; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, violent people, where would you go to look for them — to the top or the bottom ? It is ridiculous to blink the fact that since the Reform Act the great corruption has been among the voters between the £"20 and £10 rental — the Alio lodging-house and beerhouse keepers. But it is said, ' Only give the fran- chise to the artisan, and then see the difierence.' " He goes on immediately after, omitting a sentence which is nothing to the argument. "We Icnow what sort of people live in these small houses. We have long had experi- ence of them under the name of * freemen, ' and it would be a good thing if they were disfranchised altogether. They were dying out of themselves, but the Government proposed to bring them back again under another name." That refers of course to persons who live in houses between £7 and i,'10 rental. Then he said if this bill should pass what di'cadful things would happen. "The first stage would be in increase of corriiption, intimidation, and disorder, of all the evils that happen usually in elections. What would l^e the second ? The second will he, that the working men of England, finding themselves in a full majority of the whole constituency, will awake to a full sense of their power. They will say, we can do better for our- selves ; wc have ol^jects to carry as well as our neighbours, and let us unite to carry those objects ; we have machinery, we have our trades' unions, we have our leaders all ready. We have the power of combination, as we have shown over and over again ; and when we have a prize to fight for we "\\dll bring to bear -with tenfold more force than ever before." Perhaps the hint that you have your trades' unions, and machinery, and leaders — a hint which 13 1 offcrod to you some years ago — may have some cfTect, coming from such lips. But you see the -svhole tenor of these observations is this. There are men to whom 1 shouhl attribute no blame for uttering them, or for hohling them, for there are men so timid as to see giants and ghosts everywhere. The Avhole tenor of these observations is to shov/ that the great body of the working classes — because, mind, this bill only as explained by Mr. Glad- stone, and in my opinion it was an exaggerated estimate, proposed to admit 200, dOO of them — these observalions are based on the opinion that the whole of the great body of the working classes are in that condition of ignorance and degradation and also of hostility to the existing institutions of the country, that it would not be safe to admit to the franchise even two hun- dred thousand out of the five millions who are now excluded. Now, I said at Birmingham, and I say here, that in every workshop, in every room, and in every factory, in every clubhouse of every trade, there ought to be a card hung up with these remarks, these slanders of the M'orking men, there suspended. If these statements be true, hang the card uj) there that you may see in that mirror what you are, and reform yourselves. If this charge be false, as I hold it to be false, then read what it is that is said of you by those who are hostile to your political rights, and draw your ranks closer together ancl make a more resolute and determined effort to change the state of things in this countr3^ Some newspapers have said, since my speech at Birmingham was delivered, that it Was imfair to try to place this on the back of the Tory party. Why did they cheer it ? Why have their news- papers said that here is a great man, dropped down as it were from the clouds, to tell us all about the constitution of this country ? "y^'hy is it that Lord Derby spent many efforts trying to pursuade the utterer of these senti- ments to become a member, and a powerful member of his Cabinet ? I say the doctrines which 1).J r. Lowe uttered in that speech, I say they are in the main the doctrines upon which the Tory party has acted for generations back, although there are not many men in the House probably of that party who would dare to say what he said, and I suspect there is hardly one of them who could say it so well. I want to ask you a question. I do not know how many thousand persons there are here, but if I were to say 6,000 or 7, 000 — and I do not know how many thousands have been joining j^our de- monstration to-day in Manchester; but I will put the question to them through the gentlemen below (the reporters), to whom we give so much trouble, and to whom we are so much indebted. I put this question. If these arguments of ignorance and drunkenness be true, what does it show? There is a paper published in London— the Morning Herald — which tlie other day I am told wrote some hints for me for my speech on this occasion. The Morning Herald, which is an organ of the Tory party, pointed out a fact, which I stated with groat amplitude at a meeting of Bochdalc Sunday School teachers — I think on Good Friday last — that a very large j^oition of the children of the working classes in Manchester — a proportion ile])lorably large — was growing up without any actual provision being made for their education. And the Morning llrrald states also that in Manchester there is a great deal of dninkcnness, although I believe all the li.Lures show tliat there is less drunkenness in Manchester, probably, than in any other town 14 of equal magnitude in the kingdom. 1 will assume the ignorance for the moment, and assume the drunkeiniess, and assume the degradation to be there, and what shall I say of the Government that has permitted it ? What is this Government — what is this supreme jiower in this country? It holds all the land, or nearly so; it holds the revenues of the richest church the world has ever seen. It has both Houses of Parliament to do its bidding. It has two national and noble universities; in fact, it has every- thing of power in this coinitry, and yet according to the showing of this writer the people are ignorant and drunken and degraded. It must be far worse than that of almost any other country, because in almost every other constitutional country the franchise is far more widely extended than it is in this, and without the slightest danger to property or to order, "Why is it, I ask you, that Englishmen in England are not so well educated as Englishmen in New England ? In the New England States of North America there have been seven generations of men who came originally from this country, who have been thoroughly and fully instructed. I know that in every Free State — I mean in every State that was free before the late war — there is a wide suffraf^e; there schools are imi versa), and all the people have the fullest opportunity of being thoroughly instructed for the purposes of life. In this country, what are we doing ? The people who have this matter in their hands, and who could settle it, are discussing questions of catechisms — Thirty-nine Articles — what they call "conscience-clauses." They are all engaged in worrying some diy bone of this kind, whilst the great body of the people, and especially the poorest of the people, are left wholly unprovided for. I venture to say — and I would stake everything I have in the world wpon it — that if the platform of the National Reform League, or any platform which gave a substantial and real representation to the whole people, was embodied in an act of Parliament there would not pass over three sessions of Parliament before there would be a full provision for the thorough instruction of every Vv'^orking man's child in this kingdom. But there is another argiiment that was very often used in the House of Commons; which is even more extraordinary, coming from the quarter whence we heard it ; and it was this — that the country is so prosperous, pro\"ing that it is so v/ell governed that in reality there is not only no occa- sion for anything more, but nobody has any right to ask for anything more. It was one of the arguments, I believe, of the gentleman from whom I have (pioted, that we have a right to be well governed, but that the right to govern is a right which exists and rests much higher up. We are assembled here in a building which recalls a good many memories if one had the time and I had the voice to dwell upon them. But, may I ask you why it is we are prosperous ? You recollect, many of you here, twenty-five years ago — in the year 1841 — this county was like a county subjected to desolation and to famine; and, in fact, it is only since 18-40, since the abolition of the com laws, since the general change to the free trade policy, that there has been continually growing that prosperity which is now brought against us as an ai'gument why there should be no further reform in Parliament. Suppose we had the corn laws now, mth the August we have had and the September we are having, gold would be going out of the country, the rate of interest 15 would be rising, tlie wages of the people would be falling, the wages they received would be absorbed in the purchase of dear food ; and generally over the whole country there woxdd come a state of things which would give the gi-eatest alarm to the thoughtful in the higher class, and the greatest suftering to the multitudes at the base of the social scale. But why is it — how comes it that we are not in that danger ? — that we are not tilled with confusion and dismay? Who was it that destroyed the curse of the corn laws, and who was it that fought desperately to maintain that curse ? Surely 3'ou know who were accustomed to assemble in the Free-trade Hall, who were largely instrumental in destroying it, and you laiow that no man was more forward in its support than the man who is now the Prime Minister of England. If this is so — if we, the party which we represent on this jjlatform to-night — if we did much to promote this prosperity, are we not fairly entitled to offer ourselves as advisers on the question of the franchise? What is called statesmanship is not like any other profession. In other professions failure is acknowledged, and it shuts a man out from distinction and supremacy ; but Lord Derby at this moment is Prime Minister of England whose failures are in the annals of England for thirty years past. In 1834 Lord Derby left Eaid Grey's Government because he would not permit even inquiry into the excessive revenues of the Iiish Church. But the Irish Church is doomed to destruction. In 184G he left Sir Ptobert Peel and became the leader of the Tory Protectionists, because he would not consent to the abolition of the corn laws ; and since then he has been foremost in opposition to all good things in Parliament. Lord Derby is not the leader of his party in S high sense. He is not its educator ; he is not its guide. He is its leader in the foolish contests in which its ignorance and selfishness involves itself with the people. Oidy three or four days ago I ojDened a book which professed to be a history of the governmg families of England. It is composed of articles, many of which appeared in the Spectator newspaper. There is one on the Stanleys of Knowsley, and they are certainly a governing family, seeing that Lord Derby and Lord Stanley are both of them in the present Government. In opening the book, I find that in the course taken during the agitation of the Reform Act, Lord Stanley, the present Earl of Derby, is stated to have leaped on the table where there was a number of reformers assembled, and to have urged upon them the necessity of refusing the payment of taxes till the Pteform Bill was passed. I was not there to see it, but I have heard the story before several times ; I see it recorded in this volume, and I take it therefore to be correct. But Lord Derby m 185"3 came forward "to stem the tide of democracy." In 1859 Lord Derby was the author, or head of a Government that pi-oposed a reform bill of a most fraudident character ; and in 18GG he is the head of a party which has destroyed an honest franchise bill, and has overthrown an honest and patriotic Government. But the newspapers which write in his support teU us that after all this his Govern- ment is not in the least disabled or precluded from dealing with the reform question. I hope no reformer will dream of such a thing. If you like you may trust your life to your most bitter foe ; but I will not do it if I know it. "We had free trade from free traders ; for when Sir Robert Peel repealed • 10 the Corn-law he was as sincere a free trader as if he had spoken free trade for the last five years from this platform on which I stantl. But Lord Derby is not a reformer, nor will he introduce a Ilcform Bill in the character of a reformer. If he introduces one, it will he as before — it will be some juggle, some dishonest trick, something base, like tlic means by which they overthrew the bill of Earl Ilusscll. If that bill had passed, moderate as it was, I undertake to say it would have been received in every part of the United Kingdom with the liveliest satisfaction. It would have given to working men, or to a number of them, a partnership in the State, and 1 believe that the nation would have l)een happier and stronger by the passing of that bill. But now discontent is growing — gnnving everywhere, and it will continue to grow until the discontent becomes a great peril in the country, l^nless a satisfactory measure is introduced and passed through Parliament, I charge Lord Derby and his friends with this. 1 say that they have brought class into conflict with class. I say that they have done much to separate Parliament from the nation — that they have made the House of Commons the rcviler and not the protector of the people — and further, that they have frustrated the just and l^eneficent intentions of the Crown. And, in conclusion, I venture upon something — which some may deem a foretelling of what is to come. I say that these men who are now in office cannot govern Britain, The middle class and the working class will alike condemn them. They camiot govern Ireland, In that unhappy country their policy has begotten a condition of clu'onic insurrection whicli they can never cure. They will be excluded fi'om power, and their policy will be rejected by the people ; for it is on broad, and just, and liberal principles alone that England can maintain her honourable l>ut not now unchallenged x>la'Ce amongst the great nations of the world. On the evening of the follovving dny, at a Banquet held at the Albion Hotel, in the same city, ^^Ir. Bright, in responding to the toast, *' The health of John Bright," said: — 1 am very nmcli obliged to you for the opinion you have expresseil of me in such emphatic language; at the same time I am pained to think how much you attribute to me, and how nnich apparently you expect from me, for 1 am one of those who think that after all one man can do very little, and in a (question like this we have now before, us unassisted, unbacked by the multitudes to v/hom Mr. Edge has referred, it is almost nothing we can do. However, I hope that amongst us we have been doing a little during the last two days. We know at the concludmg meeting of this short Manchester campaigu that these meetings have been very diRcrcnt, and each has been remarkable in its Avay. Th- first was 17 enormous beyond counting, and held amid most unfavourable circumstances. Some men coming from Rochdale in a train yesterday morning, in the same carriage -with, a relative of mine, said they were rather glad than otherwise that it did rain, for if it had not rained people would have said that they came out to enjoy the sunshine; but they would show them that they cared enough for the question of reform to come during a continuous shower of rain. Well, I thought that was rather a plucky idea that my townsman had laid hold of, and I suspect that it was an idea entertained by many present besides himself. The second meeting was also remarkable for its numbers. It was held in the finest hall in this kingdom, and I must say it was, as far as temperature was concerned, the most oppressive meeting which it has been my fortune to attend, for the fact is when we went into the room the temperature, the state of the atmosphere was just such as we expected it would be when we should leave the room ; for the hall had been crammed full for two hours before we entered it; and, therefore, we went into a room where the atmosphere was already much exhausted, and we suffered, many of us, in consequence. To-night we have a very different meeting. It is not numerous beyond counting; but it is very agreeable, and the table has been loaded with every- thing that is wholesome and everything that is elegant for our gratifi- cation; and, after the three meetings, may we not say that, differing as they have differed, still they all had one object, and have been directed to one great purpose. There are different platforms or opinions here, and there is very great difference in the religious world, but still the religious world proposes to itself to march on to one common en3. 1 here are differences in this school of politics — the reform school — but we may still march on to one common end, which is a real representati ) i of the people and the establishment of popular power as supreme in this country. Now, the Reform League, under whose auspices this moveraenb hue was originated — it has been carried on jointly by that body and by ths N'ational Reform Union, and the difference between them is not considerable — the Reform League hoists a flag which bears upon it these words, ** Manhood suffrage and the ballot." Now, whatever opinion any person may have with regard to the wisdom of immediately, if it was in our power, estab- lishing these principles, or that policy, in an act of Parliament, this, I think no man can doubt, that argument on principle, almost — if not altogether — unassailable, can be brought in favour of that flag. 1 speak now on the question of giving a vote to every man. I believe that there is no argument worth listening to for a moment that can be brought against the adoption of the ballot. Although we may differ, I believe the difference arises from ^ this, that many believe that something less than the proposition of the League is sufficient for the purpose of a reform that would make the House of Commons a true representation of the people; and that proposing some- thing short of that which the League proposes, it is believed that the large portion of that middle class, to which Mr. Rumney referred, would in some degree be propitiated, and would be induced to lend their support to the less extensive proposition. I think that is quite true. I believe that the middle |» •lasses of this country, speaking of them in any way that you like, by any 18 kind of measurement for the ascertainment of their opinions, my own honest opinion is that they would consider at this moment that a bill that advanced as far as household suffrage was in itself, considering the opinions of the country, a mser measure for all purposes than that of man- hood suffrage, and they believe it would give to the country a really honest Parliament. A great deal may be said for that. I think myseK that opinion is on the whole correct. I do not agree at all Avith Mr. Rumney in the dreary picture which he gave of the opinion of the middle classes. Why, what is the result of the present system ? I showed last night how entirely — almost entirely — the people took no part in county elections; that in boroughs the majority of members come from boroughs under 20,000 inhabitants; and yet notwithstanding that, you can elect a Parliament from which the people are so much excluded, and in which the aristocracy and great landowners have enormous power, you can still elect a Parliament which is within a hair's breadth of passing a measure which is, after all, a considerable exten- sion of the suffrage; and I believe the same Parliament, if such a measure had been proposed by the Government, would have been almost as near passing a proposition for household suffrage. Therefore, I do not agree with Mr. Rumney. I think his description of the opinions of the middle classes is not accurate. If he will go into any borough in the kingdom, any free borough of any fair size, from which you may draw a fair argument, he will find that no Liberal member can be returned unless he pledges himself 'to a very considerable extension of the franchise; and that cannot be so, if all the middle class — 1 speak not of the Tories — if a great majority of the middle class in each borough were not in favour of an extension of the franchise. Well, now, my Anew of the whole question, and of the difference among reformers, is this: that when one seesamovement— areal movement, something grand in its proportions, powerful for the gaining of results — the plan of a sensible man who wants to do something, and does not want to split hairs, is to go with that movement and to make the best of it, and to get all that can be got out of it. "VThy should we who are called the middle classes see this vast volume of millions of voices gathering and rolling on ? and shall we take no part in it, nor bid it welcome, nor bid it success, nor wish to see the great results which in all probability mil be bom of it ? I was very sorry to find from the papers the other day that some friends of mine — I refer merely to one whose letter I read, in the West Riding of Yorkshire — took different views of this matter. I read a very kind and I am sure, a conscientiously-dictated letter from Mr. Baines, the member for Leeds, to the committee who are organising the great meeting that is to take place in the West Riding, declining the invitation to attend the meeting, on the ground that he was not in favour of manhood suf- frage. Well, I don't blame him in the least for not being in favour of manhood suffrage. I am not in favour of manhood suffrage, as against household siiftVage; and the people of Leeds or the West Riding don't want to commit Mr. Baines to manhood suffrage by his attending the meeting. I am not committed to it any the more because I have attended these meet- ings. No doubt it has arisen from Mr. Baines being anxious not to be misrepresented, and being so scrupulous that he should not appear to hold 19 out expectations to the persons attending that meeting whicli lie was not prepared afterwards to fulfil. But so far as I have seen of the working men in connection with this movement during the last few months, I find them tolerant in a high degree, and considerate and respectful of and to all those who may honestly differ with them in any degree, and are still honestly friendly to the admission of any considerable number of them to the fran- chise. Well, they would admit all to work, and we should all work on with perfect unanimity up to the point where the work parts from us and falls into other hands. Make this movement as large as you like; carry it on from the West Riding to the Northumberland and the Durham districts ; from there to Glasgow; and when it has exhibited itself in Glasgovv^ perhaps about the beginning of the year, it may reappear in greater proportions than ever m London. Let it take any proportions you please. Finally it will become a question for the deliberations of twelve or fifteen men who will be the Queen's immediate advisers, what shall be the precise measures to be pre- sented to Parliament, and when they discuss this measure they must try to be unanimous, which is not always easy. They must try to ascertain what it is that Parliament will fairly consider and will be likely to pass. More than that. They will have to consider, not merely the voice of those wto have attended these great meetings, but that portion of the people who have been silent on this question. They will have to consider tbat which is called the Conservative opinion of the country — the "timid opinion." They will have to consider this, — I am not speaking of those who are passionately against all reform, and who hate the very name of popular power, but I speak of the section much larger, that which lies between us antl ihem, who are quiet stay-at-home people, who probably read their paper and have as good a feeling towards working men as any of us have, but who have not sufficiently considered this question, and who are not courageous enou<^h in spirit to join in a great movement like this. But when the JNlinistry and the Cabinet come to discuss the measure to be submitted to Parliament, they must seriously take into consideration all this amount of opinion — violent some of it; less outspoken, some of it; the quiet opinion of those timid mul- titudes who are at home — and out of all this they must determine what is the measure which, in the then condition of public opinion, it is wise to submit to Parliament, because a measure based upon such a vievv can alone have a chance of passing, and when it is passed can alone be for any considerable period a satisfactory settlement of a great question like this. I say with great deference to my friend Mr. Baines, for whom I have a most unfeigned respect, and whose service in connection with this (question can hardly be estimated, I am very sorry that ho and others have not found it consistent with their duty to attend these meetings, and to give to them all the support in their power to make of the 'whole reform feeling and opinion of the country one grand force, because, depend upon it, the resistance is not easily to be surmounted, and we shall not in all probability cut off the enemy in detachments. They appear always in a powerful and united body, and unless we meet him in the same form and shape, I know not how it is possible that we can eventually triumph. T confess 1 am here with views which I have expressed for many yeirs on the 20 question of parliamentary reform. I should not split hairs with any measure which may be introduced into Parliament. I am not likely to complain that it goes too far. I should support it if it were an honest and true measure, although I might wish it went further, and when I see a Reform League or a National Reform Union, or any other association of the people, formed for the purpose of advancing this great question, I don't stop to inquire whether they may go a few leagues short of my own terminus, or a few leagues beyond it. But as far as we can go together I go with them ; my views shall be added to theirs, and I trust after a time tliat the whole voice of the reform party in the country may be so loud that these 300 gentlemen of whom I have a very distinct and not always very pleasant recollection, that they may at last admit that the people of this country are in favour of reform ; and that when I have spoken in favour of it in the House of Commons, I have been justified in saying that 1 expressed the opiiuons of millions outside that House. I believe the time is coming when this question must be laid hold of by the Government, and that Parliament will feel it dare not treat it in the future as it has treated it in the past. These great meetings, and I think Mr. MUl very -wisely and justly said so, are not meetings for discussion so much as they are meetings for demonstra- tion of opinion, and if you like, I will add, for an exhibition of force — an exhibition of force of opinion now, and if that force of opinion be despised and disregarded, it may become an exhibition of another kind of force. Now, I have been insulted in past time, not a little in this very city, because 1 was said to be in favour of peace at any price. I always said I was not in favour of war at any cost, as I think ten years ago my opponents vrere. 1 believe that however much any of us may have thought that political questions in our country should never again be settled by force, yet there is something in the constitution of our nature that when evils are allowed to run on beyond a certain period unredressed, the most peace-loving of men are unable to keep the peace. And bear this in mind, however much we may wish political ques- tions to be settled by moral means, yet it is not more immoral for the people to use force in the last resort, for the obtaining and securing of freedom, than it is for the Government to use force to suppress and deny that freedom. 1 must ask pardon of my friends for touching on what may be termed "abstract principles." We are doubtless a very long way — longer than can be measured, I believe and hope, from the time when it will be necessary for us seriously, or for the people of this country, to consider questions of that nature. I think that question was settled in 1832, whether the changes which may be necessary in the govermnent of the United Kingdom can be accf»mplished by peaceful means, or whether force will be necessary for their completion. At that time force was very nearly necessary, and the opponents of the people saw that and succumbed. Liberty from that time has gro-wai so much that vast meetings, 200, 000 in number, are gathered together under the countenance of the mayor of a great borough, and the vast multitude was mar- shalled at the place of meeting under the care of the superintendent of police. I have no doubt that the Mayor of Manchester, although he did not preside at the Knot Mill meeting, still sympathised with its object. We have passed tile time, and may it never return, when the people of England need to speak 21 of force in connection with political reform. We have greater means of instruction than we had before. Every man has his newspaper, with the history of the proceedings of the world, on his table every day, and we have freedom to assemble and discuss these questions at our will. The poiat at which we have arrived of political liberty and instruction and of civilisation, permits us to believe that there is nothing we can fairly claim — nothing that could do us good that cannot be obtained by that grand and peaceful move- ment of which the meetmgs of the last few days have formed so eminent and useful a part. 1 am glad to see Mr. Beale§^ here to-day — and the other gentlemen connected with the Reform League. I hope that wheresoever they happen to go they will be received with the cordiality and unanimity they have met in Manchester ; and 1 hope that when they have gone their round they will have shown to the powers that be — to the Government that is, and to the Government that shortly, I hope, is to be — that the question of reform has taken deep root in the minds of the whole nation ; and that Parliament may as well shut its doors against every other kind of legislation whatsoever until it consents to pass a bill that shall satisfy the just . i L anxious expectations of the people. SPEECH AT LEEDS. The 8th of October being the day fixed upon for the West Riding of Yorkshire Reform Demonstration, Mr. Bright in the evening, by invitation, delivered the following speech in the Leeds Town Hall. On rising he was received with great enthusiasm, the meeting rose en masse, and cheered vigorously for nearly five minutes. When silence was at length restored, the hon. gentleman said : — Mr, Chairmam and gentlemen, — If I accept the address which has just been passed by this meeting, and handed to be by your chairman, be assured that I do it full of feeling — feeling in the first place of thankfulness to you for your kindness, and, in the second place, in fear lest in accepting it I should promise to do that which I am wholly unable to perform. Perhaps some of you in your vast meeting to-day have not sufficiently measured the forces which are opposed to you in the carrying of any great measure of reform. I must ask you not to imagine for a moment that it ca be effected, as it were, by one stroke of some victorious arm, but that it must be done, and can only be done, by the combined and resolute efforts of 22 millions of people. Mr. Kell, in the observations lie has addressed to you, referred to the opinions of a dear and lamented friend of mine. I recollect one thing which he said, and which he said often during the course of our gi-eat agitation. It was this, — That the West Riding of Yorkshire freely pronouncijig its opinion influenced to a large extent the opinion of England, and on some great occasions had finally determined the policy of the Govern- ment. To-day, the West Eiding, in a multitudinous meeting, has spoken -with a voice loud enough to be heard all through the nation, and if 1 am not misinformed that vast meeting of which you have formed a part decided by unanimous consent that the representation of the people in the English House of Commons was bad and unsatisfactory to the last degree. You decided that it was bad not only for what it excluded, but also for what it included; that, whilst it excluded the great bulk of the nation, it included every form of corruption and evil of which a representative system is capable; and you came to resolutions which mean this, that you will change tliis system if it lies in your power, and that you and the unenfranchised millions will stand that exclusion no longer. I suppose that, after this meeting and the great events of this day, we shall have no end of criticism upon our conduct and our speeches. I find that some writers, criticising the observations I made a fortnight ago in Manchester, complain that I said very much the same thing that I had said at Birmingham, I believe that a charge of this nature was brought, more than two thousand j^ears ago, against one of the wisest of the ancients. They said that he was always saying the same thing about the same thing — and he asked them in return whether they expected him to say a different thing about the same thing. I have another answer to make to these critics, and it is this: AVhen they have answered what I have already said about this thing, then I -wdU try to tell them something new. Now, that case which we submit to the thinking portion of our countrjmien, is a very simple one. "VVe say that we ai'e the citizens of a country that has had repi-esentative institutions for many cen- turies. There is no time to which history goes back when there was not a representative assembly of some kind within the kingdom of England. We say further, that the House of Commons is the oidy real basis, and the only true security for liberty to the people of these realms. We know — everybody knows — that the Crown in our day cannot give freedom to the X^eople, neither can it materially impair our freedom. We know further that the House of Lords, from its very constitution, from the nature of its being, cannot be relied upon as a safeguard for the freedom of Englishmen. We know that representation, and a just and a fair representation, is that which alone makes a free country. Some of our colonies, now the United States of America, a hundred years ago knew that they could not be represented in the English Parliament, They would not stand taxation from a Parliament in which they were not repre- sented. They threw off, therefore, the supremacy of the English Crown, and declared themselves a free and independent state, and at this moment there is not an English colony, from Canada to New Zealand, that would not also throw off the supremacy of England if the Parliament or Cro\i-n of £3 England denied to it or its representatives a responsible government. In fact there is nothing whatever that distinguishes us from any despotic country in the world, in the matter of political freedom, except the possession of a representative assembly. We have been taught — the people of this country have been taught — in my opinion foolishly and even wickedly, to hate and despise Russia, Austria, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, or Naples as it lately existed, and mainly because those countries were despotic coun- tries in which the people had no influence in their government. Well, then, we come to this conclusion, that the Parliament of England, and mainly the House of Commons, is the foundation of law and order, and that, unless the people are heard in that House, the people are not the source of power, and they themselves are but little removed from a despotism, not of the Crown, but of a privileged and limited class. I believe that the House of Commons has no pretence whatever for its existence except that it speaks for the nation, of which it is a part. It is not established to speak for the Crown and the djoiasty; it was not established, and ought not to exist, to speak merely for nobles and great landowners. It has not the pretence to be a popular assembly if it speaks merely for the boroughmongers, and I say that its character is degraded when on its benches can be seen by scores Mr. ^MoneyjBags, SI. P. , who has walked through corruption into his seat for Lancaster, for Totnes, for Yarmouth, or for a score, or it may be for two or three scores of other boroughs which are very much in the same predica- ment. Whilst speakingfor these, — for the Crown, for the nobles, for the gi-eat landowners, for the boroughmongers, for the men who have purchased their seats in Parliament, the House of Commons is no security for tjie freedom of the people, and if it speaks for only one out of six or seven of the people, it is no fair representation of the nation. If it exists at all, if it is to be in accordance with the principles of the English constitution, it ought so far to represent all classes of the people that every man, whether he has a vote or not himself, can feel that he has an interest in the House, and that it watches fairly over his rights and his interests. Let us take a case, and if we had a meeting every week during the year, we should have in some way or other fresh cases to dissect. There has been during last week an election in a small town in Wales, the town of Brecon. What happened ? There were two candidates. The carcase was a very small one, but there were candidates ready. One was a gentleman of whom I can say nothing but what is in his praise, for I happen to know that he resigned or quitted the representation of the Duke of Marlborough's rotten borough of Woodstock because he would not subject his own honest liberal convictions to the views of his Tory brother, the Duke of Marlborough. Well, Lord Alfred Churchill was one candidate. I forget the name of the other. (A Voice : "Howel Gwyn.") That sounds very Welsh, and is probably correct. There was a furious contest, and great excitement. Public meetings were held and speeches made, and a canvass of the most pertinacious character. I am told that the agents of great and powerful houses were begging, and coax- ing, and compelling, that they might get votes, and the end was the Tory candidate poUed 128, and the Liberal candidate 102 votes. So that it took just 230 votes to return this last made member to the House of Commoua. £e< 24 fore the Reform Bill the borough of Brecon was a borough returning, I believe, two members to Parliament, and the electors consisted of ten })urge8scs. 1 believe they did not make an even dozen, although they might be 11, and the Reform Bill extended the franchise in Brecon, and added something more than 200 electors, so that 230 have just voted. I ask you whether it is jios- sible there should be any fair representation in a borough like this. I am told, from private sources, and I see it stated in the newspapers, that at least two noble families have been very active through their agents — noble families that I am told came in with the Conqueror, and as far as I know it maybe the onlything they ever did. They are noble; but, judging at least from any observation that I have been able to make, they are obscure and un- known to an eminent degree. But how can there possibly be any freedom of election in a borough which can only raise 230 voters ? But this is not the only borough of that kind. Let us give, if only for a moment, our attention to one or two facts. In England and Ireland there are 16 boroughs, and the population of each of them is under 5,000, but they return 22 members to Parliament. In England, Wales, and Ireland, there are no less than 72 boroughs, whose population varies from 5,000, but is under 10,000 persons, and they return 12? members to the House of Commons. You do not know much about little boroughs; but there are small boroughs in York- shire, as well as in Wales and the south, in which a little compulsion or corruption, or a very acute attorney, or that sort of combutation which prevails amongst a few publicans, which may be accounted for if it cannot be justified by the exceptional position in which they are placed, and that exceptional legislation to which they are subjected— in these small boroughs any of these things can make the difference whether one man or the other is returned to Parliament. In point of fact, there is no representation in these small boroughs. In them the wishes of the people are nothing ; the opinion of the nation nothing ; the representation is in the hands of 200 or 300 electors, manipulated, coaxed, compelled, coniipted, and bribed. Take two cases which have been i)rominent during the past session, and allow me V) touch for a moment on the character of those unjust aspersions which have been thrown out on your character by a gentleman of great ability, capable of doing very great things, but somehow or other, I know not by what means, he is always prevented from doing them. He sits nominally for Calne in the House of Commons, In that borough there are 173 electors, but the Marquis of Lansdo\vne is the all-prevailing influence in it, and there is no practical or real representation left to the 173 nominal electors. Well, but this gentleman comes to the House of Commons, and you know what he said. I received to-day a letter from the to-wn of Warwick, and I am glad to see it has become a little more lively than it was when 1 knew it on questions of politics, 1 have received from Warwick a paper in which the calumnies — and I believe them to be such —uttered against the great body of the working classes are printed on placards and circulated amongst the workshops and cottages of the working classes in that borough. 1 wish they were circulated in every workshop in the kingdom. I say that, unless you turn your faces against the men who thus treated you, who would hijure you and then insult you, I do not know to what lengths this language and conduct may not go in tlie coming session of Parliament. This gentleman, who has no constituency — for the man by whose favour he was returned to the House of Commons has now gone down in the tomb — this gentleman, returned to Parliament in defiance of the British constitution, in defiance of the orders of the House of Commons, which has declared that any attempt on the part of any peer to interfere with elections is a breach of iDrivilege — this gentleman used this language in speaking of the men to whom the bill brought in by Earl Russell and Mr. Gladstone proposed to give the franchise. He asked us whether, if we wanted venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of intimidation, if we wanted impulsive, unreflecting, violent people, we should go to the top or the bottom. He said he knew what sort of persons lived in these small houses, between seven and ten pounds rental. We have had a long experience of them under the name of freemen, and it would be a good thing If they were disfranchised altogether. He also said that one of the results of passing this bill, which he did something to pre- vent, would be an increase of cori-uption, intimidation, disorder, and all those evils which usually happen at elections. And then he describes the second result — that the working men of England, finding themselves in a full majority of the whole constituency, would awake to a sense of their power, and would do the most dreadful things, which he describes. He says they would be no longer cajoled at elections. They would set up for themselves. They would have objects to carry as well as their neighbours, and would unite to carry those objects. He says they have the machinery already. They have trades' unions and leaders, and the power of combina- tion, and so describes the terrible and destructive things that you would do if you had the franchise, and he says of the House of Commons, "as long as we have not passed this bill, we are masters of the situation." Now, I have said often that I do not in the least blame the speaker for frankly speaking his sentiments. I think the sentiments are altogether erroneous. I think the courage which made him express them very un- fortunate, but I only consider the sentiments of importance because they were welcomed with enthusiasm, and apparently by an unanimous consent, by the whole Tory party in the House. Bat there is another gentleman who does not sit on our side of the House, and who now, by favour of Lord Derby, governs 100,000,000 of people in British India. That gentleman sits for a rotten borough also. If the member for Calne sits by favour of one marquis, the member for Stamford sits by favour of another marquis ; and he was the man who assailed Mr. Gladstone with an unusual — perhaps in him not unusual — but with a notable animosity, because Mr. Gladstone said that the great body of the unenfranchised men of England were worthy of consideration, for they were our own flesh and blood. I say that the House of Comm(ms, according to the spirit and meaning of the British constitution, and according, to the spirit and meaning of its own standing orders, has no right to admit within its walls any man representing not a free constituency of his countrymen, but representing only a single lord and peer of the realm. Now, if there be in that House of Commons not a few of this class; if there be many representatives of half-a-dozen great landowners who sit for counties, is it to be wondered at that liberal measures make so small and difiicult progress within the walla of that House. I was very^rauch struck towards the end of the last session by an answer that was^given to me by one of the most accomplished members of that House, who has taken his seat there only since the last election, and I believe there is no ""man in the House whose opinion on a })oint like this is more worthy of attention. I asked him, as he had sat there from the beginning of the session, say from February till the month of June, what he thought of the House of Commons. His ansv/er was given to me in language of positive sorrow. Ho said that he was shocked and discouraged, by what he had seen, for he said, I think this is a House in which no good can be done. Now, for what are we met hero to-night, and for what did— I \vill not say one hundred or two hundred thousand, or a quarter of a million, but a multitude whom no man could count, — why did that multitude to-day quit all its usual labours and avoca- tions, march long miles through your country, to gather on your neighboui'- ing moor ? It was to protest against this state of things, and if possible, to change it, and we are resolved — now, you agree with me — we are resolved — (great cheering, the meeting rising, and waving handkerchiefs) — that every member who sits in the House of Commons shall have a free constituency and that the working men in the United Kingdom shall form a fair portion of every free constituency. We propose, in fact, to restore the representation," and to restore the fair and free action of the English constitution. We believe that there is a spirit created in London, in Birmingham, in South Lancashire, in the West Eiding of Yoi'kshire, in the Newcastle and Durham district, and in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, — there is a power rising which, fairly combined, can do all this. The working men must combine, and they must subscribe. A penny a week or a penny a month from the thousands and from the millions would raise funds that would enable you to carry on the most gigantic and successful agitation that this country has ever seen. It is mainly your ovm voice that will decide your own fate, I do not quite agree -with some of the observations of our chairman,. — the observations which have been made to-night, as if there were a chasm between you and the middle class. It is not so, and it ought not to be so, and if you will take out small boroughs, in which the middle class themselves are not inde- pendent, you -will find in nearly all the great towns of the Idngdom that there is a powerful middle class influence in favour of the enfranchisement of the working classes ; and bear in mind further, that even of that higher class in the social scale — that class which has great wealth, and high title, and great priN-ilege, that in the history of England there has always been men to stand out from that class, and to contend for liberty with the great body of their countrj'men. If the nation is to be split into two parts, and there is to be a wide gulf between, there is nothing for the future but subjection or vio- lence, for without this you are powerless to attain your ends. But, working with a large portion of the middle class, and with the most intelligent and just of the highest social class, we may tind these great measures accomplished without the \'iolation of public peace, and without any disruption of the general harmony which ought to prevail throughout all classes of the people. Therefore I say this, rely mainly upon yourselves, for you are the great nation excluded. See what you have done. I am not saying this to flatter, ii7 for no word of flattery to the working class or to any other class ever passed my lips ; but when I look over this country, and see the cities you have built, the railroads you have made, the manufactures you have produced, the cargoes which freight the ships of the greatest mercantile nation the world has ever seen, — when I see that you have converted by your labour what was once a wilderness, these islands, into a fruitful garden, — when I know that you have created this wealth, and that you are a nation whose name is a word of pov/er throughout all the world, — then I feel confident, by your united exertions, in conjunction with the middle class, you can overthrow for ever the domination of the class of which you complain. The few meetings which have been held since the close of the last session of Parliament have had a prodigious effect. There are news- paper writers who could not see a bit from January to July, and now the scales are, as it were, di'opping from their eyes, and this gradual improve- ment of \dsion is going on most extensively throughout the country, and it is said now that the Tories are half repenting the course which they took during the last session. And when I say that Lord Derby is not a reformer they charge me with railing at Lord Derby, and they say that it is a positive case of injustice to charge the Tories with being hostile to reform. Well, my memory may not be as accurate as that of some people, but I do recol- lect that during the last session 280 gentlemen who call themselves Tories objected to Mr. Gladstone's bill because it proposed to admit, according to Mr. Gladstone's estimate, 204, 000 working men, some of the unenfranchised 5,000,000, to the suffrage. It maybe that the Tories did not care about this, and that all they wanted was power and place. Now, Lord Derby, in the speech which he made just after he came into office, intimated in very distinct language that if he had refused to accept it when the Queen offered it it would have been the break up of his party, for they had looked on the Treasuiy benches so long, and with such intenseness of vision, with such eagerness, with such hunger for what there is there, that if he, even for six months, had not allowed them to get there, they would have said that he was not worth following — that they gave up the chase, and would not follow it any longer. Well, for this what did they do? They wasted a whole session. They have disturbed the whole country, and having made these great meetings necessary, they have disgusted and estranged the unenfran- chised classes merely to supplant Earl Russell in one House and Mr. Gladstone in the other. In America there are many political parties. There is a party that is always seeking office, and it goes by the name of "the bread and butter party," and it turns out after all that the party of Lord Derby is not an anti-reform party, but a bread and butter party. For six months' office, or it may run to nine or twelve months, they have rejected an honest and good measure, they have betrayed the true interests of the people, — and I believe I have seen men on that bench who would sell the mace, which is the symbol of loyalty, on the table of the House, if by doing so they could give to themselves fixity of tenure on the ministerial benches. Now, I must ask you in all seriousness to let the country know what is our object, what we propose, and how far we are honestly asking for what we believe to be good. I shall not appeal to the writers in newspapers, one of '28 whom, and not a very creditable one, is concealed somewhere in this town. I shall appeal only to the tnith-loving vast majority of the people of this country. Our object is this, to restore popular representation in this country, and to make the House of Commons the organ and representative of th« nation, and not of a small class of it. If you look over all the world you will now see that representation is extending everywhere, and the degree of its completeness is becoming the measure of national liberty, not only on the North American continent, but in the nations and kingdoms of old Europe. 1 have mentioned the North American continent. To-morrow is a great day in the United States, when perhaps millions of men will go to the poll, and they will give their votes on the question whether justice shall or shall not be done to the liberated African, and in a day or two we shall hear the result, and I shall be greatly surprised if that result does not add one more proof to those already given, of the solidity, intelligence, and public spirit of the great body of the people of the United States. I have mentioned the North American continent. I refer to the colonies which are still part of this empire as well as to those other colonies which now form a great and free republic. It was towards the end of the fifteenth century that the grand old Genoese discovered the new world. A friend of mine, Cyrus W. Field, of New York — is the Columbus of our time, for after no less than forty passages across the Atlantic in pursuit of the gi-eat aim of his life, he has, at length, by his cable, moored the new world close alongside the old. To speak from the United Kingdom to the North American continent, and from North America to the United Kingdom, is now but the work of a moment of time, and it does not require the utterance even of a wliisper. The English nations are brought together and they must march on together. The spirit of either Govenmaent must be the same, although the form may be dififerent. A broad and generous freedom is the heritage of England, and our purpose is this, to establish that freedom for ever on the sure foundation of a broad and generous representation of the people. SPEECHES AT GLASGOW. On the IGth of the same month, having been invited to address the Reformers of Glasgow, Mr. Bright visited that city on the occasion of the Reform Demonstration ; and in the City Hall e easy to sho^^^ that the land laws in England- are bad enough, and that but for the outlet of the population, afforded by our extraordinary manufac- turing industry, the condition of England would in all probability becomi- quite as bad as the condition of Ireland has been; but if the countries differ \vith regard to land and the management of it in their customs, may it not be reasonable that they should also differ in their law3 ? In Ireland the huid- owner is the creature of conquest, not of conquest of 800 years ago, but of conquest completed only 200 years ago ; amd it may be well for tiS to remember, and for all Englishmen to rememlicr, that succeeding that transfer of the land to the new comers from Great Britain, there followeil a sj'steni of law, known by the name of the penal code, of the most Lngeniou.-v cruelty, and such as, I believe, has never in modem times been inflicted on any Christian people. Unhappil}^ on this account, the wound which was opened by the conquest has never l^een permitted to be closed, and thus wc have had landowners in Ireland of a ditftjrent race, of a different religioB, and of different ideas frotn the great bulk of the people, and there has been a constant and bitter war between the owTicrs and occupiers of the soil. Now, uj) to this point I suppose that even the gentlemen who were dimng together the other evening in Belfast would probably agree with me, because what I have stated is mere matter of notorious history to be found in every book which has treated of the course of Irish affairs during the last two hunilred years. But I think they would agree with me even further than this. They would say that Ireland is a land which has been torn by religious faalliug guilt in the eye of the whole world. It is a country, too, in which, and it is the only Christian country of which it may be said for some centuries past — it is a country in which a famme of the motst desolating character has prevailed even during our o^vvn time. I think I wlis told in 1S49, as I stood in the burial gl-ound at Skibbereen, that at least 400 people who had died of famine were buried within the quarter of an acre of ground on which I was then looking. It is a country, too, from, which there has been a gi-eater emigration bjj sea within a given time than has been known at any time from any other country in the world. It is a country where there has been, for generations past, a general sense of wrongs out of which has grown a state of chronic insurrection ; and at this very moment when I speak, the general safeguard of constitutional lib(srty is withdrawn, and we meet in this hall, and I speak here to-night, rather by the forbearance and permission of the Irish executive than under the pro- tection of the common safeguards of the rights and liberties of the people of the United Kingdom. I venture to say that this is a miserable and a humUiatuig picture to draw of this country. Bear in mind tha4 1 am not speaking of Poland suffering under the conquest of Russia. There is a gentleman now a candidate for an Irish countj^ wlio is very great upon the Avrongs of Poland ; but I have found him always in the House of Commons taking sides with that great party which has systematically supported the wrongs of Ireland. I am not speaking about Hungary, 'or of Venice as she was imd'er the rule of Austria, or of the Greeks under the donmiionof the Turk, but I am speaking of Ireland — part of the^Unitsd Kingdom — part of that which boasts itself to be the most civilised and the most Christian nationin the world. I took the liberty recently, at a meeting in Glasgow, to say that I believed it was impossible for a class to govern a great nation wisely and justly. Now, in Ireland there has been a field in which all the principles, of the Tory party have had their complete experiment 'and development. You have tad the country gentlemanjin all his power. You have had any number of acts of Parliament which the ancient Parliament of Ireland or the Parliament of the United^Kingdom could give him. You have had the Established Church supportedjby the law, even to the extent, not many years ago, of collecting its revenues by the aid of military force. In point of fact, I believe it would be impossible^to imagine a state of things in which the i)rinciple3 of the Tory party have had a more entire and complete opjwrtuftity for then- trial ilian;they have.had within the limits of this island. And yet what has happened ? Ji This, surely. That the kingdom has been continually weakened— that the^harmony of the empire has been disturbed, aid that the mischief has not been'conlined to the United Kingdom, but has spread to the colonies. And at this^ moment, as we Ipiow by every arrival fi'oui the United iStatos, tlie colony of Canada is exposed to danger of invasion — that it is forced to keep on foot sohlicrs which it otherwise woukl not want, and to involve itself in expenses which threaten to he vuinous to its financial condition, and all that it may defend itself from Irishmen hostile to England, who are settled in the United States. In fact, the Government of Lord Derby at this moment is doing exactly that which the Government of Lord North did nearly a hundred years ago— it is sending out troops across the Atlantic to fight Irishmen who are the bitter enemies of England on the American continent. Now, I believe every gentleman in this room will admit that all that I have said is literally true. And if it be true, what conclusion are we to come to ? Is it that the law is bad which rules in Ireland and the people good, or that tlie law is good and the people bad ? Now, let us, if we can, get rid for a raojnent of Episcoj)ali- anism, Presbyterianism, Protestantism, and Orangeism on the one hand, and of Catholicism, Pomanism, Ultramontanism on the other, — let us for a moment get beyond all these " isms," and try if we can discover what it is that is the matter with your countrj^ I shall ask yo\i only to turn your eye upon two points — the first is the Established Church, and the second is the tenure of land. The church may be said to affect the soul and sentiment of the country, and the land question may be said to aflfect the means of of life and the comforts of the people. Now, I shall not blame the bishops and clergy of the Established Church. There may be, and I doubt not there are, amongst them many pio\is and devoted jnen, who labour to the utmost of their power to do good in the district which is committed to their care ; but I venture to say this, that if they were all good and all pious, it V/'ould not in a national point of view compensate for this one fatal error— the error of their existence as the ministers of an Established Protestant Church in Ireland. Every man of them is necessaril}' in his district a symbol of the supremacy of the few and of the subjection of the many ; and although the amount of the revenue of the Established Church as the sum payable by the whole nation may not be considerable, yet bear in mind that it is often the galling of the chain which is more tormenting than the weight of it. I believe that the removal of the Established Church would create a new political and social atmosphere in Ireland — that it would make the l)8ople feel that old things had passed away — that all things had become new — that an Irishman and his faith were no longer to be condemned in his owni country — and that for the first time the English peo])le and the English Parliament intended to do full justice to Ireland. Now, leaving the Established Church, I come to the question of the land. I have said that the ownership of the land in Ireland came originally from conquest and from confiscation, and, as a matter of cour.se, there was created a great gulf l)etween the owner and the occupier, and from that time to this doubtless there has been wanting that sympathy which exists to a large extent in Great Britain, and that ought to exist in every country. I am told — you can answer it if I am wrong— that it is not common in Ireland now to gives leases to tenants, especially to Catholic tenants. If that be so, t)ien the security for the property of the tenant rests only upon the good feeling and favour of the owner of the land, for the laws, as we laiow, have been made by tlie landowners, and many propositions for the advantage of tlic tenants have unfortunately been too little considered by Parliament. Tlio result is that you have bad farming, bad dwelling-houses, bad temper, and everything bad connected with the occupation and cultivation of land in Ireland, One of the results — a result the most appalling— is this, that your population are fleeing fi'om your country and seeking a refuge in a distant land. On this point I wish to refer to a letter v.hich I received a few days ago from a most esteemed citizen of Dublin. He told me that he believed that a very large poi^tion of what he called the poor, amongst Irishmen, sympathised with any scheme or any proposition that was adverse to the Imperial Government. He said further, that the people hero are rather izi the country than of it, and that they are looking more to America than they are looking to England. I think there is a good deal in that. When wc consider how many Irishmen have found a refuge nt America, I do not know how we can wonder at that .•statement. You will recollect that when the ancient Hebrew prophet prayed in his captivity he prayed with his window opened towards Jerusalem. Y«)u know that the followers of Mahommed, when they i)ray, turn their faces towards Mecca. When the Irish peasant asks for food, and freedom, and blessing, his eye follows the setting sun ; the aspirations of his heart reach beyond the wide Atlantic and in spirit he grasps hands with the great Republic of the West. If this be so, I say, then, that tlie disease is not only serious, but it is even desperate ; but desperate as it is, I believe there is a certain remedy for it, if the people and the Parliament of the United Kingdom are willing to apply it. Now, if it were possible, would it n§fc be worth while to change the sentiments and improve the condition of the Irisli cultivators of the soil ? If we were to remove the State Church there would still be a church, but it would not be a supremacy church. The Catholics of Ireland have no idea of saying that Protestantism in its various forms shall not exist in their island. There would still be a church, but it would be a free church of a section of a free people. I will not go into details about the change. Doubtless every man would say tliat the preser^t occupants of the livings should, diiring their lifetime, not be disturbed ; but if the principle of the abolition of the State Cliurch were once fixed and accepted, it would not be difficult to arrange the details that would be satisfactory to the people of Ireland. Now, who objects to this ? The men who are in favour of supremacy, and the men who have a fanatical hatred of what they call Popery. To honest and good men of the Protestant Church and of the Protestant faith there is no reason whatever to fear this change. What has the voluntary syotem done in Scotland ? What has it done amongst the Nonconfonuists of England ? What has it done amongst the population of Wales ? and what has it dnno amongst the Catholic popidaticni of your own Ireland ? In mj' opinion the abolition of the Established Church would give I*rotestar.tism itself another chance. I believe there has been in Ireland no other enemy of Protestantism so injurious as the Protestant State Establi.-;hment. It has been loaded for 200 years with the sins of l)ad government and bad law?, and whatever may have been the beauty and the holiness of its doctrine or 4G of its professors, it lias not been able to hold its ground, loaded as it has been by the sins of a bad government. One effect of the Established C'lnirch has been this, the making Catholicism in Ireland not oidy a faith l)ut a patriotism, for it was not likely that any member of the Catholic Church would incline in the slightest degree to Protestantism so long as it presented itself to his eyes as a wrong doer and full of injustice in connection with the government of his country. But now, if honest Protestantism has nothing to fear from the change that I would recommend, what has the honest landowner to fear ? The liistory of Europe and America for the last one hundred years affords scarcely any picture more painful than that which is afforded by the lando%\'ncrs of this kingdom. The Irish lando^vner has been different from every other landowner, for the bulk of his laml has only been about half cultivated, and he has liad to collect his rents by a process approaching the evils of civil war. His property has been very insecure — the sale of it sometimes has been rendered impossible. The landowner himself has often been hated by those who ought to have loved him. He has been banished from his ancestral home by terror, and not a few have lost their lives without the sympathy of those who ought to have been their protectors and their friends. 1 would like to ask, what can be much worse than this ? If in this country 50 years ago, as in Prussia, there had arisen statesmen who would have taken one-third or one-half the land from the landowners of Ireland, and made it over to their tenants, I believe that the Irish landowner, great as would have been the injustice of which he mif'ht have complained, would in all probability have been licher and happier than he has been. Now, -what is the first remedy which you woulil propose ? Clearly this — that which is the most easily applicable and Avhich would most speedily touch the condition of the country. It is this — that the j)roj)erty which the tenant shall invest or create in his farm shall be secured to the tenant l>y law. I believe that if Parliament were fairly to enact this it would make a change in the whole tejnper of the country'. I recollect in the year 1849 being down in the county of Wexford. I called at the house of an old farmer of the name of Stafford, who lived in a very good house, the best farmhouse, I think, that T had seen since leaving Dublin. He ii\'ed on his omhi farm, Avhich he had bou<^ht fifteen years before. The house was a house which he had himself built. He was a venerable old man, and we had some very interesting con- versation with him. I asked how it was he had so good a. house ? He said the fann was his own, and the house was his own, and, as no man could disturb him, he had made it a much better house than was common for the fra-mers of Ireland. I said to him, "If all the farmers of Ireland had the same security for the capital they laid out on their farms, what would be the the result ? " The old man almost sprang out of his chair, and said — " Sir, if you will give us that encouragement, we will hate the hunger out of Ireland." It is said that all this must be left to contract between the landlord and the tenant ; but the public, which may be neither landlord nor tenant, has a great interest in this question ; and I maintam that the interests of the public require that Parliament should secure to the tenant the proi>erty Avhich he has invested in his farm. But I would not stop here. 47 Tlicre is another, ami ^vh^it I slioiild call a more permanent ami far-reacliing remedy for the evils of Ireland, and those persons who stickle so much for political economy I hope -will follow me in this. The great evil of Ireland is this — that the Irish people — the Irish nation — are dispossessed of the soil, and what we ought to do is to pro\dde for, and aid in, their restoration to it by all mersures of justice. \Vhy should we tolerate in Ireland the law of primogeniture ? Why should we tolerate tiie system of entails ? Why ahould the object of the law be to accumulate land in great masses in few hands, and to make it almost impossible for persons of small means, and tenant farmers, to boiJome possessors of land ? If you go to other countries — for example, to Norway, to Denmark, to Holland, to Belgium, to France, to Germany, to Italy, or to the United States, you will find that in all these cN'untries those laws of which I complain have been abolished, and the land is just as free to buy and sell, and hold and cultivate, as any other descrip- tion of proj^erty in the kingdom. No doubt your Landed Estates Court and your Kecord of Titles Act were good measures, but they were good because they were in the direction that I want to travel further in. But I would go further than that ; I would deal with the question of absenteeism. I am not going to propose to tax absentees ; but if my advice were taken, we should have a Parliamentary commission empowered to buy up the large t'.-s bates in Ireland belonging to the English nobility, for the purpose of .selimg them on easy terms to the occupiers of the farms and to the tenantry of Ireland. Now, let me be fairly understood. I am not pro- r-oning to tax absentees ; I am not proposing to take any of their property Pitm them ; but I propose this, that a Parliamontary commission should be empowered to treat for the purchase of those large estates with the view of felling them to the tenantry of Ireland. Now, here are some of them— the l>.asent Prime Minister Lord Derby, Lord Lansdowne, Lord FitzwiUiain, the Marquis of Hertford, the Marquis of Bath, the Duke of Bedford, the J3uke of Devonshire, and many others. They have estates in Ireland ; many of them, I dare say, are just as well managed as any estates in the country ; but what you want is to restore to Ireland a middle - class proprietary of the soil ; and I venture to say that if these estates could be purchased and could be sold out farm by farm to the tenant occupiers in Ireland, that it would be infinitely better in a conservative sense, than that they should belong to great proprietors living out of the country. I have said that the disease is desperate, and that the remedy must he searching. I assert that the present system ot Government with regard to the church and with regard to the land has failed disastrously in Ireland. Under it Ireland has become an object of commiseration to the whole world and a discredit to the United Kingdom, of which it forms a part. It 13 a land of many sorrows. Men fight for supremacy, and call it Pro- te»stanti3ra ; they fight for evil and bad laws, and they call it acting for the defence of property. Now, are there no good men in Ireland of those who are generally opposed to us in politics — are there none who can rise above the level of party ? If there be such, I wish my voice nnght reach them. I have often asked myself whether patriotism is dead in Ireland ? Cannot all the peccn ncciistomed to— state with any degree of conciseness and fairness what you want in this respect, — I helicvc you will not find a sensi])le man to dissent from the proposition that these questions are questions of gi-eat importance, and ought to be entertained and adjusted by the Covcrnmcnt and I'ar- liament. And, therefore, if the time should come — and I hope it is not far distant, — that the people are let in and that Parlia"uent is more popular, if you like, more democratic, the complaints made from this side of the Channel will be listened to there with more attention, and your 100 members, or so many of them as may be in favoiir of justice to Ireland, will find an increased and increasing power there to sympathise with them, and bring these questions to some wise and just arrangement. I don't knov/ that I have any more to say. I am very sensible of your kindness, and it appears to me almost unreasonable that any of the citizens of Cork should come so far on this occasion and address me in the manner you have done. The Irish question has been to me one of great interest from my earliest con- nection with public life. I knew Mr. O'Connell with a certain intimacy, and when I vras a very young member of the House of Commons, I often, it I found an opportunity, sat by him, for I found his conversation not only verj'- amusing but verj?- instructive. He knew eveiybody, and almost every- thing, and his comments on all that passed were very pleasant to listen to, and often very informing. I don't know how — whether it is from a natural love of what is just or not — but I alv/ays had a great sj^mpathy with the Irish people and Irish questions, and as long as I remain in Parliament, or in public life, or in life at all, and am capable of thinking, I believe I shall be of opinion that we in this generation do owe it to ourselves, and owe it to Ireland, to make such amends as we can for an amount of neglect, and cruelty, and injustice committed in the past, such as I thuik no civilised or Christian nation has ever inflicted on another Christian nation. I thank yon most sincerely for your gi'eat kindness to me, and I hope you may rely upon it that whatever I have done from that sympathy in j)ast times, I shall not wdthhold in the future. Only you must not exaggerate what I can do or what anybody else can do ; but if j'ou get your members to unite cordially with the really Liberal party which is every dny gi'owing in England, I hope by and by you will have gained something. If we regret the dark- ness of the past of Ireland, we may do something to make us hope for a brighter and pleasanter prospect for the future. bo On the 2nd of Novembor Mr. Bright attended a meeting of the Working Men of Dublin, in the Theatre of the Mechanics' Institution, James Haughton, Esq., in the Chair. An address of welcome to Mr. Bright was presented to him, amid loud and general cheering. The address expressed the thanks of the working men of L-elaud t6 Mr. Bright, and stated that the Irish people had no hope of relie from an English House of Commons as at present constituted, Mr. Bright, in acknowledging the address, said : — When I came to your city I was asked if I would attend a public meet- ing on the question of Parliamentary Reform. I answered that I was not in good order for much spealdng, for I have suffered, as I am afraid you will tind before I come to the end of my speech, from much cold and hoarseness, but it was urged upon me that there were at least some, and not an inconsider- able number, of the working men of this city who would be glad ^f I would meet them ; and it was proposed to oflfer to me some address of friendship and confidence such as that which has been read. I have no complaint to make of it, but this, that whilst I do not say it indicates too much kindness, yet that it colours too highly the small services which I have been able to render to any portion of my countrymen. Your countrymen are reckoned generally to be a people of great gratitude and of much enthusiasm, and, therefore, I accept the address with all the kindness and feelings of friend- ship with which it has been offered, and L hope it will be, at least in some degree, a stimulant to me, in whatever position in life I am placed, to remember, as I have ever in past times remembered, the claims of the i^eople of this island to complete equal justice with all portions of the people of the United Kingdom. Now, there may be persons in this room, I should be surprised if there were not, who doubt v/hether it is worth their while even to hope for substantial justice, as this address says, from a ParUament sitting in London. If there be such a man in this room let him understand that I am not the man to condemn him or to express surprise at the opinion at which he has arrived. But I would ask him in return for that, that he would give me at least for a few minutes a patient hearing, and he will find that, whether justice may come from the north or the south, or the east or the west — (cries of "The West," and great cheering) — I, at any rate, stand as a friend to the most complete justice to the people of this island. When discussing the question of Parliamentary Reform, I kave often heard it asserted that the people of Ireland, and I am not speaking of those who arc liopeless of good from a Parliament in London, but that the people of Ireland generally imagine that the question of Parliamentary Reform has very little importance for them. Now I undertake to say, and I think I can make it clear to this meeting, that whatever be the importance of that question to any man in England or Scotland, if the two islands are to continue under Imperial parlianientary govern- ment, it is of more importance to every Irishman. You know that the Parliament of which I am a raemher contains 058 members, of whom 105 cross the Channel from Ireland, and when they go to London they meet — supposing all the members of the House of Commons gathered together — 553 members, who are returned for Great Britain. Now, supi)Ose that all your 105 members were absolutely good and honourable representatives of the people of Ireland — I will not say Tories, or Whigs, or Badicals, or Eepealers, but anything you like, — let every man imagine that all these members were exactly the sort of men he would wish to go from Ireland, when the 105 arrive in London they meet with the 553 who are returned from Great Britain. Now, suppose that the system of Par- liamentary representation in Great Britain is very bad, that it represents very few persons in that great island, and that those who appear to be repre- sented are distributed in the small boroughs over different parts of the country, and in the counties under the thumb and finger of the landlords, it is clear that the whole Parliament, although your 105 members may be very good men, must still be a very bad Parliament. Therefore, if any man imagines — and I should think no man can imagine — that the representation of the people in Ireland is in a very good state — still, if he fancies it is in a good state — unless the representation of Croat Bi-itain were at least equally good, you might have a hundi'ed excellent Irish members in Parliament at Westminster ; but the whole 658 members might be a very bad Par- liament for the United Kingdom. The member for a borough or a county in Ireland, when he goes to London, votes for measures for the whole king- dom ; and a member for Lancashire or for Warwickshire, or for any other county or borough in Great Britain, -votes for measures not only for Great Britain but also for Ireland, and therefore, all parts of the L'nited Kingdom — every county, every borough, every parish, every family, every man — has a clear and distinct and undoubted interest in a Parliament that shall fairly and justly represent the whole nation. Now, look for a moment at tv/o or three facts with regard to Ireland alone. I have stated some facts with regard to England and Scotland at recent meetings held across the Chaimel. Now for two or three facts with regard to Ireland. In Ireland you have five boroughs returning each one member, the average number of electors in each of these boroughs being only 172. You have 13 boroughs, the average number being 31G. You have nine other boroughs with an average number of electors of 497. You have, therefore, 27 boroughs whose v/hole number of electors, if they were all put together, is only 9,453, or an average of 350 electors for eacb member. I must tell you further that you have a single county vrith nearly t^ace as many voters as the whole of those 27 boroughs. Your 27 boroughs have only 1),453 electors, and the county of Cork has IG, 107 electors, and returns but two members. But that is not the worst of the case. It happens both in Great Britain and Ireland, wherever the borough constituencies are so small, that it is almost impossible that they should be indepcndeiit; a very acute lawyer, for example, in one of those boroughs — a very inlluenti^al clergyman, whether of your church or ours-^when I say ours, I do not mean mine, but the Church of England — half-a-dozen men combining together, or a little corruption from candidates going with a wcll-tilled x^urse, — tjiese are the influences brouglit to bear upon tliose small boroughs botL. in England and Ireland. A great many of them return their members by means of cor- iniption, more or less, and a free and real representation of the people is hardly ever possible in a borough of that small size. But if I were to com- pare your boroughs -rtdth your counties, see how it stands. You have 39 borough members, with 30,000 electors, and you have G4 county members, with 172,000 electors. Therefore you see that the members are so dis- tributed that the great populations have not one quarter of the influence in Parliament which those small populations in the small boroughs have. We come next to another question, which is of great consequence. Not only are those small boroughs altogether too small for independence, but if we come to your large county constituencies, we find that from the peculiar circumstances and the relations which exist between the voter and the owner of the land, there is scarcely any freedom of election. Even in your counties I should suppose that if there was no compulsion from the landowners or their agents, that in at least three-fourths of this island the vote of the county electors would be by a vast majority in favour of the Liberal candidates. I am not speaking merely of mdh who profess a sort of hberality ■which just enables them to go with their party, but I speak of men who would be thoroughly in earnest in carrying out, as far as they were able, in Parliament, the opinions ■svliich they were sent to represent by the large constituencies who elected them. The question of the ballot is, in my opinion, of the greatest importance in Great Britain and Ireland, but is of more importance in the counties than it is in the large boroughs. For example : in Great Britain, in such boroughs as Edinburgh and Glasgow, andjilanchester and Birmingham, and the metropolitan boroughs, where the number of electors runs from 10,000 to 25,000, bribery is of no avail, because you could not bribe thousands of men. To bribe 100 or 200 would not alter the return at an election with so large a constituency. But what you want with the ballot is, that in the counties where the tenant farmers vote, and where they live upon their land without the security of a lease, or without the security of any law to to give them compensation for any improvements they have mp-de upon the land, the tenant farmer feels himself always liable to injury, and sometimes to ruin, if he gets into a dispute with the agent or the landowner with regard to the manner in which he has exercised his franchise. And what will be very important also, if you have the ballot, your elections will be tranquil, without disorder and without riot. Last week, or the week before, there was an election in one of your great counties. Well, making eveiy allowance that can be made for the supposed exaggerations of the Avriters of the two parties, it is quite clear ito everybody that the circumstances of that election, fliough not absolutely uncommon in Ireland, were still such as to be utterly discreditable to a real representative system. And you muSt bear in mind that there is no other people in the world that considers that it has a fair representative system unless It h^s the batot. The ballot is universal almost in the United States. It is almost universal in the colonies, at any rate in the Australian colonies ; it is almost universal on the continent of Europe, and in the new parliament of Nocth Germany, which is about soon to be assembled, every man of 25 years of age is to be allowed to vote, and to vote bj ballot. Now, I hold, without any 50 fcnr of contradiction, that the iuleliigencc and tha virtues of the people of Ireland are not represented in the Parliament. You have your wrongs to complain of — wrongs centuries old, and wrongs that long agothepeople of Ireland, and, I venture to say, the people of Great Britain united with Ireland My friend up there will not listen to the end of my sentence. I say that the people of Great Britain, acting with the people of Ireland, in a fair repre- sentation of the whole, would long ago have remedied every just grievance of which you could complain. Now, I will take two questions which I treated upon the other evening. I will ask about one question— that is, the question of the supremacy of the Church in Ireland. Half the people of England are Nonconformists. They are not in favour of an Established Church anywhere, and it is utterly impossible that they could be in favour of an Established Church in an island like this— au Established Church formed of a mere handful of the population, in opposi- tion to the wishes of the nation. Now take the principality of Wales. I suppose that four out of five of the population there are Dissenters, and' they are not in favour of maintaining a religious Protestant establishment in Ireland. The people of Scotland have also seceded in such large numberH from their Established Church, although of a democratic character, that I suppose those who have seceded are a considerable majority of the whole people, — they are not in favour of maintaining an ecclesiastical establish- ment in Ireland in opposition to the views . of the great majority of your people. Take the other question, — that of land. There is nobody in Great Britain of the great town population, of the middle class, or of the still more numerous working class, who has any sympathy with that condition of the law and of the administration of the law which has worked such mischiefs in your country. But these Nonconformist?^ whether in England, Wales, or Scotland, these great middle classes, and .still greater working classes, are in the position that you are. Only sixteen of every hundred have a vote, and those sixteen arc so arranged that when their representatives get to Parliament they turn out for the most part to be no real representatives of the people. I will tell you fairly that you, as the less populous and less powerful part of this great nation — you of all the men in the United Kingdom, have by far the strongest interest in a thorough reform of the Imperial Parliament, and 1 believe that you yourselves could not do yourselves by yourselves more complete justice than you can do fairly acting with the generous millions of my countrymen in whose name 1 stand here. You have on this platform two members of the Reform League from London. I received yesterday, or the day before, a telegram from the Scottish Reform League, from Glasgow. I am not sure whether there is a copy of it in any of the newspapers, but it was sent to me, and I presuuic it was sent to me that I might read it if I had the opportunity of meeting any of the unenfranchised men of this city. It says : The Scottish Reform League request you to convey to the Reformers in Ireland their deep sym- pathy. They sincerely hope that soon in Ireland as in Scotland and England, Reform Leagues may be formed in every town to secure to the people their political rights. Urge upon our friends in Ireland their duty to promote this great movement, and to secure at home those benefits which 57 tliousands of their feilow-countrjmicn are forced to seek in other land; — where land and State Church grievances are unknown. We also seek co- operation, knowing that our freedom, though secure to-morrow, would not he safe so long as one portion of the United Kingdom v/ero less free than the others. There is the outspoken voice of the representatives of that great multitude that only a fortnight since I saw passing through the streets of Glasgow. For three hours the procession passed, with all the emblems and sjanbols of their various trades, and the streets for two or three miles were enlivened by banners, and the air was tilled with the sounds of music from their bands. Those men but spoke the same language that was heard in the West Riding, in Manchester, in Birmingham, and in London, and you men of Dublin, and of Ireland, you never made a mistake more grievous- in your lives than for you to come to the conclusion that there are not millions of men in Great Britain willing to do you full justice. I am very sorry that my voice is not what it was, and when I think of the work that is to be done sometimes I feel it is a pity we grow old so fast. But years ago, when I have thought of the condition of Ireland, of its sorrows and WTongs, of the discredit that its condition has brought upon the English, the Irish, and the British name, I have thought, if I could be in all other things the same, but by birth an Irishman, there is not a town, in this island I would not \nsit for the purpose of discussing the great Irisli question, and of rousing my countrymen to some great and united action. I do not believe in the necessity of widespread and perpetual misery. I do not believe that we are placed on this island, and on tliis earth, that one man might be great and wealthy, and revel in every profuse Indulgence, and five, six, nine, or ten men should suffer the abject misery which we see so commonly in the world. With your soil, your climate, and your active and spirited race, I know not what they might not do. There have been reasons to my mmd why soil and climate, and the labour of your population, have not produced general comfort and competence for all. The address speaks of the friendly feeling and the sympathy Avhich 1 have had for Ireland during my political career. When I first went into the House of Commons the most prominent figure in it was Daniel O'Connell. I have gat by his side for hours during the discussions in that House, and listened to observ^ations both amusing and histructive on what was passing under discussion. I have seen him, too, more than once upon our platform of the Anti-Coni-law League. I recollect that on one occasion he sent to Ireland expressly for a newspaper for me, which contained a report of a speech which he made against the corn law when the corn law was passing through Parliament in ISl.'), and we owe much to his exertions in connection with that question, for almost the whole Liberal — I suppose the whole Liberal— party of the Irish representatives in Parlianicnt supported the measure of free trade of which we were the promi- nent advocates ; and I know of nothing that was favourable to freedom, "whether in connection with Ireland or England, that O'Connell did not support with all his great powers. I know nothing pleasanter, and hardly anything more useful, than personal recollections of this nature. Why is it, now, there should be any kind of scliism between the Liberal j^eoplc of Ireland and the Liberal people of Great Britain? I don't a^jk you to join hands with supremacy and oppression, whether in your inland or ours. What I ask you is, to open your heart of hearts, and join hands for a real and thorough working union for freedom with the great peojjle of Great Britain. Before I sit do^vn, I must be allowed to advert to a jwint which has been much commented ujjon — a paragraph in my speech made the other night with regard to the land. There are newspapers in Dublin which I need not name, because I am quite sure you can find them out — which do not feel any strong desire or conscientious compulsion to judge fairly anything I may say amongst the various measures which I propose for what I shall call the pacification, and redemption if you like, of the people of Ireland. It was this I said : " It is of the first importance that the people of Ireland, by some process or other, should have the opportunity of being made the possessors of then" o^vn soil. You will know perfectl}-^ well that I am not about to propose a copy of the villanous crimes of 200 years ago, to confiscate the lands of the proprietors, here or elsewhere. I propose to mtroduce a system which would gradually, no doubt rapidly and easily, without injuring anybody, make many thousands who are now tena,nt farmers, without lease and security, the owners of their farms in this island. This is my plan, and I want to restate it with a little further explanation, in order that these gentle- men to whom I have referred may not repeat the very untrue, and I may say e their race, whatever their colour, have implanted in their hearts by their Creator, wiser much than these men, the knowledge and the love of justice. I will tell you that, since the day when I sat beside O'Connell — and at an eailier day, that I have considered this question of Ireland. In 1849, for Gl several wcelca in tlio autumn, and for several weeks in tlie autumn of 1852, I came to Ireland expressly to examine these questions by consulting with all classes of the people in every part of the island. I will undertake to say that I believe there is no man in li^ngland who has more fully studied the evidence given before the celebrated Devon commission in regard to Ireland than I have. Therefore I dai'c stand up before any Irishman or English- man to discuss the Irish question. I say that the plans, the theories, the policy of legislation of my opponents in this matter all have failed signally, deplorably, disastrously, ignominiously, and, therefore, I say that I have a right to come in and offer the people of Ireland, as I would olTer to the people of Great Britain and the Imperial Parliament, a wise nnd jvist policy upon this ques- tion. You know that I have attended great meetings in England within the last two months, and in Scotland also. I think that I am at liberty to tender to you from those scores, or hundreds of thousands of men the hand of fellowship and goodwill. I wish I might be permitted when I go back, as in i'act, I think by this address that I am permitted to say to them, that amidst the factions by which Ireland has been torn, amidst the many errors that have been committed, amidst the passions that have been excited, amidst the hopes that have been blasted, and amidst the misery that has been endured, there is still Iq this island, and amongst its people, a heart that can sympathise with tliose who turn to them with a fixed resolution to judge them fairly, and to do them justice. (Loud cheers, which were prolonged for several minutes, the audience rising and waving their hats.) I have made my speech. I have said my say. I have fulfilled my small mission to you. I thank you from my heart for the kindness with which you have received me, wliich f shall never forget. And if I have in past times felt an unquenehablc sympathy with the sufferings of your people, you may rely upon it that if there be au Irish member to speak for Ireland, he will find me heartily by his siie. SPEECH AT MANCHESTEB. At the great Reform Banquet iu the Free -trade Hall, TJaacLcster, November 20th, 18GG, Mr. Bright, M.P., who was present, rose amidst enthusiastic cheering, continuing for several minutes, the greater part of the audience standing. He said : — Althougli, perhaps, this is one of the most striking and important meetings which have been held in tliis country dv.ring the last few years, you will, perhaps, be surprised to learn tliat I came to it with a sense almost of indifference : not indifierence as to its importance ; but with au absence of tliat feeling of responsibility which has pressed so nnich upon me, on some recent occassions. For the committee were kind enough to send round to G2 their guests a list of the speakers who were expected to address the meeting. I found them nmch more numerous than is common, and I found my name about half way down the list. I took it, therefore, for gi-anted that I could come, for once, in some degree, as a spectator and a listener, rather than as a prominent actor at the meeting. Some gentlemen who were expected to l>e here arc not here — Mr. Stansfeld, because he i.s ill ; Mr. Layard, because he has not returned from the Continent. And ^Mr. Forster, who seems less able to occupy the time of an audience when he comes into Lancashire than he is in Yorkshire — has spoken, I may say, uttering the feeling of the v/holc meeting, for a very much shorter time than we had a right to expect. I shall trust, therefore, to those who come after me to say a good deal which I shall not take up your time in attempting to say to-night. During the last memorable session of Parliament you will probably recollect that it was a very common thing in the mouths of the opponents of the Government bill to say that the working men — the aggrieved party — felt no grievance ; for they scarcely ex^iressed any opmion on the bill — in its favour, or, indeed, any opinion at all on the question of their own admisaion to the franchise. I was repeatedly charged with bemg in the position of a leader in a case, and it was snid that, after all, 1 had no clients and no following. There was a general taunt uttered that we were very much e3:aggerating the case of the worliing men, and that the condition of that large class was so comfortable and so prosperous that they were perfectly content with the Government as it is carried on by a Parliament so inadequately representing the whole nation. I suspect that the argument, so far as it was uttered, and had any force, has now been fully and satisfactorily answered. But these gentlemen have turned right round, and have now another thing to say about our meetings. They say that the middle class stands entirely aloof, that nobody really cares for reform but the working men, and that no great question can be carried, or sensibly affected, in this country by the opinions and action of working men alone. They point to the great meet- ings that have been held, and after di\T.ding the notorious and proved magnitude of the meetings by four or six, they then conclude that there were a few thousands of worldng men present ; but members of Parliament, manufacturers, merchants, and what they call the respectable and influential classes were found to be entirely absent. But they forget that these meetings at which they say working men only attended were meetings called expressly by working men and for working men. But if they want to know, or wanted to know, how far the main objects of those meetings received sympathy from a more powerful class, they might have come to those meetings to have learned. In Birmingham, as you know, the Mayor was in the procession, and the chief constable of the town took charge of aU the arrangements of it ; and in the great lown-haH of that city, the Mayor took the chair at the evening meeting, and T venture to say that it would be impossible in any town in this kingdom to assemble upon the platform a greater amount of what these gentlemen call respectability, wealth, and station in the town than were assembled there and then. If they had come to this hall on the evening of the great mectmg in Manchester, and if they had gone to the To^oi-hall of Leeds, or to the City-hall of Glasgow, they would have found that after the scores of thousands that had attended the great open-air meeting in the daytime there was a meeting most important, most influential, omnipotent indeed, within that town in which it was held. In the town of Leeds, I was told nearly 1,000 persons paid 5s. each to attend the meeting in the Town-hall, and i think that is some sign of the class of persons who attended. But if there was any question on this matter, I woidd ask those gentlemen to come on this platform to-night. Here is the largest and finest hail in Britain, the largest and finest hall in Europe, I believe the largest and finest hall in the world, and yet this hall is crowded with persons to whom our opponents, I think generally, unless they were very fastidious, would admit the term respectable and influential. I doubt if there has ever been held in. this kingdom, within our time, a political 'banquet more numerous, more influential, more unanimous, more grand in every respect, than that which is held here to-night. Just now, it is the fashion to flatter and to court the middle class. The middle class are told that since the lleform Bill of 1832 political power has been in their hands; before 1832 it was with the lords and great landowners, but since 1832 it has been in tlie hands of the middle class, and now the middle class are asked whether they are willing to surrender that power into the hands of a more numerous, and, as these persons assert, a dangerous class, who would swamj), not the highest class of lords and great la.ndo^\^lers, highest in social position, but would swamp also the great middle class with whom power is now said to rest. And they try to teach the middle class that there is an essentially difierent interest between them and the great body of the people who are not yet admitted into that class. They say the one class is in power, and the other class is outside, and out of pov/er, and they warn the middle class against admitting the outsiders into partnership with them, for fear that they should dethrone the middle class and set up an unintelligent, unreasonin(y, and selfish power of their own. That is the sort of argument which is used, to the middle class to induce them to take no part in any measure that shall admit the working class to a participation in political power. I should bi; ashamed to stand on any platform and to employ such an argument as this. Is there to be found in the writings or the speaking of any public man con- nected with the Liberal or the E-eform party so dangerous and so outrageous a policy as that which these men j)ursue ? When separating the great body of the people into the middle and the working class, they set class against class, and ask you to join with the past and present monopolists of power in the miserable and perilous determination to exclude for ever the great body of your countrymen from the common rights of the glorious Enghsh constitution. There is no greater fallacy than that — that the middle classes are in possession of power. The real state of the case, if it were put in simple language, would be this — that the working men are almost univer- sally excluded, roughly and insolently, from political power, and that th(! middle class, whilst they have the semblance of it, are defrauded of the reality. The difference and the resemblance is this, that tlie worldng m^u come to the hustings at an election, and when the re turning-officer asks for the show cf hands every man can hold up his hand although his wMiiv li i!i)t upon i!ic rcgi.itcr of voters; every working miin can vr-te at that show of hands, l>iit the show ol hands is of no avail. 'I'hc midille chiss have votes, but those votes are rendered harmless :'.ud nugatory hy the unfair distribution of them, and there is i)laced la the voter's hand a weapon which has neither temper nor edge by which he can neither fight for further freedom, nor defend that which liis ancestors hive gained. On a recent occrision, 2)erhaps it was when T last stood on this platform, I stated certain facts which have not, from ttiat d;iy to this, been contradicted — I stated thnt out of cxcry 100 men throughout the United Kingdom, grown-up men, liable to taxes, expected to perform all the duties of life, responsible to the laws, 84 were excluded from the franchise, and that 16 only were included. I want to ask whether the IG out of the 100 may be said to include all the middle class ? But there i i another fact, if possible more astonishing still, and that is that three men out of every 100 throughout the United Kingdom do apparently by their votes retiirn an actual majority of the present House of Commons. But if a majority of the House of Commons be returned l)y a number so small as three out of every 100 of the men of the United Kingdom, and if the other House of Parliament asks for no votes at all, I ask you whether it is not a fact of the most transparent character that power, legislative and governing, in this country does not rest Avith the middle classes ? What Mr. Forster says is quite true. You may have suffrage— this or that, but you may have distribution of power so and such that even your present rejoresentation, bad as it is, may be made something even worse. Take the case of your boroughs, in which alone may be said to rest ever}- thing that exists in the United Kingdom of a free election. Divide the boroTtghs, 254 in number, into tv,'o classes, those under 20,000 inhabitants and those over that number. Thider 20,000 there are 145 boroughs ; over it 100. But the boroughs under 2'^, 000 return 215 members, against 181 that arc returned by the boroughs over 20,000. But that gives only a very misty idea of the state of the case. Those boroughs over 20,000 inhabitants, having 39 members fev/erthan the the boroughs under 20,000, still arc in this position — their members represent six times as many electors, seven times as much jiopulation, and fourteen times as much payment of income-tax as the larger number of members represent. It is clear beyond all cavil — for figures, after all, are difficult thinp-s to meet and controvert if they are correct — that your representative system, even in the boroughs where alone it exists in any life at all— is a representative system almost wholly delusive, and defrauds the middle classes of the power which the act of 18.32 professed to give them. And your county representatif)n is almost too sad a subject to dwell upon. Every man who occupies a house or land of an annual value Ic vs than £50 is excluded; the number of freeholders in the main diminishes, and really there remains scarcely anything of independent power and freedom of election within the majority of the counties of the United Kingdom. ^So, then, I come to thi,; conclusion, that the working classes are excluded and insulted, and that the middle classes are defrauded ; and I presume that those who really do wield thfi -nov.-er despise the middle chesses for tlieii- silence under this system. When I look at the gi'cat in: idle cl"r>3of this country, and see all that it has done, and see the political x^osition in which it has been to some extent content to rest, I cannot help saying that it reminds me very much of the language which the ancient Hebrew patriarch addressed to on§ of his sons. He said : " Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens." On the one side there is the burden of seven and a half millions i^er annum, raised by way of tax, to keep from starvation more than one million two hundred thousand paupers within the United Kingdom— and on the other hand, and higher up in the scale, there is mismanagement the most gross, there is extravagance the most reckless, and there is waste the most appalling and disgraceful which has ever been seen in the government of any country. And this is the grand result of a system which systematically shuts out the millions, and which cajoles the middle classes by the hocus pocus of a Parliamentary Government. Sir, I am delighted beyond measure, after many years of discussion, of contem- plation of labour— in connection with this great question — I say I am delighted to believe that the great body ol the people, call them middle class or call them working class, are resolved that this state of things shal exist no longer. During the last session of Parliament there has been made by an honest Govenunent an honest attempt to tinker the existing system. For, after all, the bill of th9 last session, honest and well intended and valuable as it was, was still but a tinkering of a very bad system. But the Tory party refused even to have it tinkered. They remind me very much of a wealthy but a most penurious old gentleman, who lived some years ago in my neighbourhood, and who objected, amongst other expenses, very much to a tailor's bill, and he said that he had found out that ^hole would last longer than a patch. I am not sure that that is not the case with Lord Derby and his friends ; for it was one of their great arguments that if the bill of the Government passed it would inevitably follow that something more would almost immediately be demanded. They were so anxious that things should remain as they are that they refused to admit 200,000 more of the middle class by the lowering of the county franchise, and they refused with equal, perhaps with greater pertinacity, to admit 200,000, but, as I believe, not much more than 100,000 working men, to electoral rights. They would not suppress, nor allow the suppression of one single rotten borough, and in fact there was no abuse, however foul, however intolerable, however putrid, to which they would allow the legislative reforming knife to be apphed ; and they determined to keep evei7thmg just as it is. And now these gentlemen, that we were obliged, to our great misfortune, to contend ^vith so much last session, are m office. They call themselves Her Majesty's servants ; but they have not yet dared to proclaim that they are the accepted servants of the people. Some of their papers, and some papers which arc not theirs, give us to understand, —for the papers are often understanding a great many things of which they know nothing,— that the Cabinet meetings held during the last fortnight have landed us in this strange position— that the men who were against all reform six months ago, are now warndy engaged in concocting a measure which shall be satisfactory to the great body of the Reformers of this country. My opinion is this : First of all, tliat the papers know nothing about it ; secondly, that the CO Government, wear* olilii-etl to call them a (lovernment, has not made up its miml at all whether it will bring in a Reform Bill or not. hi point of fact, Lord Derby ia waiting to see what the weather will be. And I suppose they will po3ti)oiie their decision perhaps for some few weeks to come. Who knows but that tliey will wait till this day fortnight — or yesterday fortnight? Yesterday fortnight, on Monday, the 3rd of December, it is said that, following the example of Birmingham, and the West Riding, and CUasgow, and Manchester, and Edinl)urgh, the men con- cerned in tlic trades in London will make what they call a demonstration, that is, that on behalf of the question of reform they will assemble and will peacefully walk through some of the main streets of the West End of London, for the purpose of shoA\ang that they take an interest in this great question. I know nothing of the arrangements, except what I see in the papers ; but it is said that more than 200, OUU men have arranged to walk in that ^procession. I hear on no mean authority that certain persons at the West End are getting up a little alann at what may happen on the 3rd of December. What will happen we all know. If the police do not interfere to break the peace, the peace will not be broken. And, probably, what hapi;)ened on the last occasion may be of some use in teaching the Home Secretary his duty on this occasion. There are persons, doubtless, so credulous and so willing to wish well of everybody as to imagine that Lord Derby's Government will bring in a satisfactory Reform Bill. They say that Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington carried Catholic Emancipation ; that Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington rei^ealed the Corn Law ; and why should not Lord Derby pass a Reform Bill ? Why, Lord Derby is neither the Duke of Wellington nor Sir Robert Peel. He deserted both those eminent men in 1S4G, rather than imite with them to repeal the corn law ; and he has never shown, from that hour to this, one atom of statesmanship, or one spark of patriotism, that would lead us to expect that, on this occasion, he would turn round and, neglecting his party, do something for his country. It is «all very well to say that if the Government bring in a very good bill, we who want a very good bill will support it. But it is no use dealing in phraseology and platitudes of that sort. Look at the Cabinet of Lord Derl)y ; look what the members of it said and did during late years, and during the' late par- liamentary session. Lord Derby has told us that it was his mission to stem democracy ; his friends in the House of Commons declared last session that the passing of that bill of the Government would be to hand over the country to the democracy of the working classes. ^Ir. Disraeli, in his speeches, was ingenious beyond his fellows, as indeed he generally is, for if he had not been he would not have been in the position in which we find him. But Mr. Disraeli was anxious to cut olF all free election in counties. He is of opinion, so far as I gather from his speeches, that the more entirely the county representation can be made conterminous with the great estates of the j)eers and the great landowners, the more entirely it will be after his own fashion and his own wishes. There is no more perilous idea cnn be entertained by any statesman ; if you once get the nominees of the great landowners and the lords on the one side of the House, and the repre- 67 sentatlves of everybody else on the other side of the House, the beginning of the end will have come. And whilst Mr. Disraeli is tickling the ears and the fancy of the country gentlemen behind him, he is propounding a plan which, if it were carried into effect, would end in the utter extinction of the political power of the country gentlemen and the peerage of England. Mr. Disraeli and Lord Stanley were the men in the last Derby Govermuent who proposed to disfranchise 70,000 county voters whose property was withm the limits of the boroughs, and 1 cannot believe that men who made such a proposition seven or eight years ago can produce a good honest Reform Bill now. Lord Stanley made a speech during the discussions on the late bill which his party and their press said was unanswerable. It was a speech leading to this conclusion, that he would give no votes to any of the working class until he saw, by the distribution of seats, that those votes could be made of no use to them. And Lord Stanley lent himself to an mdiappy trick, intended, as it appeared to us, to take the Government and the House by surprise, and by which, by gaining a sudden and accidental division, he might have destroyed both the bill and the Government. Lord Cranbourne is a member of this Cabinet, — Lord Robert Cecil that was a short time ago, — Lord Cranbourne quarrelled violently with Mr. Gladstone because Mr. Gladstone said the working men were of our own flesh and blood. He treated that observation very much in the same way that the Carolinian planter and slaveholder in the Senate of the United States would have replied to my friend Mr. Sunmer if he had said the black and white were equal in the eye of God, and of one flesh and blood. General Peel is a member of this Government, and he protested violefttly against any reduction of the franchise, as indeed did Sir Stafford Northcote, who is, I think, now the President of the Board of Trade. I want to ask you whether from these men you are to expect, you are to wait for, mth anxious and hopeful looking forward, any Reform Bill ? And, after all these speeches had been made, Lord Derby did his utmost to prevail upon Mr. Lowe to become a member of his Cabinet. If, after all this, they were to attempt to manufacture and introduce a Reform Bill, they would cover themseh-^s and their party with humiliation and with certain failure. I know that in this country politicians change sides ; office has a wonderful effect upon men. I suppose that there are men here such as were described by our witty friend, Mr. Hosea Biglow, in painting the character of some politicians in America. He said of them as we perhaps may say of l^ord Derby and his party, •' A merciful Proviclcnco fashioned them hollow, On purpose that they might their pi-iuciplos swallow." But, notwithstanding that provision, that merciful provision, for statesmen, I confess that I do not believe that the Govermnent have determined to bring in a Reform Bill, or that they can by any possibility bring in a bill which the Reformers of this country can accept. They have done everything during the past session by fraudulent statements — by insults to the people — by the most evident liasencss of party action — to destroy the moderatt^ and honest attempt of Lord Russell to improve the representation. And I do not believe that in one short year they can turn round ; nnd, capaciousi f;s as may be tlie internal cavity or the i'uvy iJovornment, 1 think thej' canno ill one short year swallow all their Conservative in-inciples. If a man wevp to tell mo that lie had a broth composed of half-a-dozen most poisonous ingi'edients, and that he could make of it a most wholesome dish, I think I should not belie\e him. And if he tells me that Derby, and Disraeli, and Stanley, and Cranbourne, and (;!cneral Peel, and the rest of them, after the speeches to which I listened six months ago, arc about to produce a whole- some, and salutary, and liberal Reform Bill, I must ask him not to impose for a moment on my understanding. The enemies of the bill of 18G6 cannot Jiecome the honest friends of reform in 1867 — and the conspirators of the session which has just expired cannot become honourable statesmen in t'.ic session which is aboiit to commence. My opinion may l)e no better than that of any other man. This, however, may be good advice — that all reformers should be on the watch, for there are enemies enough to our cmse, and false friends enoiigh to convince us that it is by no means out of danger. But the next bill — what must it be ? One thing I think we have a right to insist upon, that the next bill which is introduced by a Liberal and Reform Government shall be in its suffrage based upon the ancient borough franchise of the countr3^ Household or rating suffrage has existed for centuries in our parishes. It has existed for many years in our municipal corporations. It has never been found either in parish or corporation to be ilestructive of the interests of the people of those circumscribed districts of the country. I say, therefore, that we ought to stand by the ancient Con- stitution of England. I believe Lord Russell, speaking of him in his private capacity, would be in favour of extending the borough franchise, at least to the limits of the municipal franchise. There is reason to believe tliat Mr. (Iladstone himself would approve of such a measure. We know t'lat the late Attorney-General, one of the most eminent lawyers and one of the most accomplished members of the House of Commons, publicly and openly expressed himself in favour of that change, I helicve the middle class, as a rule, the Liberal portion of the middle class, would have no objection to sec the franchise extended to all householders in Loroughs. I believe if it were so extended we shoxild arrive at a 'point at which, so long at any rate as any of us are permitted to meddle with the politics of our country, no further change would be demanded, I therefore am entirely in favour of it, because I believe it to be wdse in itself, and because it is the ancient borough franchise of this kingdom. I am in favour of the constitution. I would stand by it ; wherever it afforded support for freedom I would march in its track. That track is so jilaia that the way- fai*ing man, though a fool, need not err therein. I would Ife guided by its lights. They have been kept bm^ning by great men among our forefathers for many generations. Our only safety in this warfare is in adhering to the ancient and noble constitution of our country. And when we have restored it to its ancient strength, and invited the great body of the people to take part in political power, then the House of Commons will be the servant of the nation and not its master, and it will do the bidding, not of a small, a limited, often an ignorant, necessarily a selfish class, but the bidding of a gi-eat and noble people. 69 SPEECH m LONDON. On the 4th Deccnibor, the clay followhig tho great Trades' Dcmon- stratiou m London in favour of Parliamentary Reform, Mr. Bright addi'essed a crowded and most enthusiastic audienco in St. James's Hall. He said :— It is about eight years since, in a speech which I delivered on the question of Parliamentary Reform, that I took the oj^portunity of giving what I thought was somewhat wholesome counsel to the unenfranchised worldng men of this country. I tokl them that the monopolists of political power in this country would not willingly surrender that power or any portion of it ; and further, that no class that was excluded could rely upon the generosity of any other class for that justice which it demanded, and that, therefore, although large numbers of the middle class were then, and are now, in favour of the enfranchisement of a large number of the working class, yet that they would not make that great efibrt which is^iecessary to Avring political power from those who now hold it and to extend it to those who are now a.nd were then excluded from it. I said that if the working men wished for political power they had only to ask for it in a manner to show the universality of their desire and the union and the power which they were able to bring to bear iipon it ; and I recollect particularly making a suggestion that involved me in a good deal of unfriendly criticism, namel5% that I thought the time had come, or would soon come, when it would be the duty of the working class to make xise of that gi^eat organisation of theirs which extends over the whole country — the organisation of trades and friendly societies for the i^urpose of bringing to bear ujwn the Govern- ment the entire power of their just demand. I said, further, that I believed one year only of the united action of the working class through this existing organisation would wholly change the aspect of the (piestiou of Eefonn. Now it appears that the wholesome counsel which I gave eight years ago lias become the counsel of all those who are in favour of the enfranchisement of the working man, and that coinisel has been adopted recently to a large extent, and every man in the kingdom feels that the aspect of the (question has been wholly changed. But, as has been already said to-night, it is verj"" difficult to please those by whom we are opposed ; and, as was said eight years ago, so it is said now, that it is vciy undesirable that associations like these, that were not formed for political purposes, should be worked for political ends. That is a matter of which tho members of these societies nuist be hold to be the best judges. Wo have known other societies that did not profess to be political, which have entered largely into political matters. I 70 know that some years ago nearly all the agricultural societies of the country were converted into political societies, for the purpose of sustaining an Act of Parliament which denied an honest and fair supply of food to the people of this country ; and even uow, when the agricultural societies and farmers' clubs meet, -vvo hear that sort of curious and confused political discussion which takes place when the country gentlemen and the county members make speeches to their tenantry and county supporters. But these critics of ours say that this measure — the combination of the trades' unions for political purposes — is one that excites their fears, and is of a very formidable nature. It was precisely because it would be of a formidable nature that I tirst recommended it. The fact is, that the millions can scarcely move, but that the few who are timid and in some degree ungenerous in this matter, feel themselves alarmed ; but you cannot help being numerous. If you had had better government during the last 100 years — if the land had been more in the hands of the people and less in the hands of a small class — if you had had fewer wars, lighter taxes, better instruction, and a freer trade, one-half of those in this country who are now called the working class would have been, in comfort and position, equal to those whom we call the middle class. But this is your great diiticulty now, and it is the great dilliculty of our opponents — you are too numerous, they think, to be let in with safety, and they are linding out that you are too numerous to be kept out without danger. But if these associations and the combinations of these societies are formidable, who have made them formidable ? These societies took no part in political movement until they were challenged to it by the speeches, the resolutions, the divisions, and the acts of a great party in the Parliament of the kingdom. Did they fail to have fact and argument in favour of the change proposed last session ? No ; but fact and argument had no effect upon whatever there is of reasoning power in the ranks of the Tory party. Did they think that the working men of this country — those who built this great city — those who covered this country with great cities — those who have cultivated every acre of its area — who have matle this country a name of power through all time and throughout the whole world — did they for one moment imagine that you would lie down and submit, without raising your voice against them, to the scandalous and unjust imputations that were heaped upon you? Did they think that you would be silent for ever, and patient for ever, under a perpetual exclusion from the benelits of the constitution of your country ? If they are dissatisfied with this movement, what would they have ? Would they wish that, as men did fifty or sixty years ago, instead of making open demonstration of your opinions, you should conspire with the view of changing the political constitution of your country? "Would they like that you should meet in secret societies, that you should administer to each other illegal oaths, that you should undertake the task of midnight drilling, that you should purchase throughout London and the provinces a supply of arms, that you should in this frightful and terrible manner endeavour to menace the Government, and to wring from them a concession of , your rights ? But surely one of two modes must be taken. If there be a deep and wide-spread sentiment of injustice no longer tolerable, then, judging from all past histoiy of all -pcoiAe, one of two modes will be 71 taken, either that mode so ssail and so odious of secret conspiracy, or that mode so grand and so noble which you have adopted. You have at this moment across the Channel, if the reports which the Government sanction are true, an exhibition of a plan which I deplore and condemn. You have there secret societies, and oaths, and drilling, and arms, and menaces of violence and insurrection. Is there any man in England who would like to see the working men of Oreat Britain driven to any such course in defence or in maintenance of their rights ? Well, 1 hold, then, that all men in this country, whatever be their abstract opinions on this question of a wide extension of the suffrage, should really rejoice at the noble exhibition, the orderly and grand exhibition of opinion which has been made by the work- ing men of England and Scotland during the past three months. I said that if there be a grievance — a deep-seated sentiment that there is a grievance — there must necessarily be a voice to express and to proclaim it. What is the grievance of which you complain '! You are the citizenrs, the native inhabitants of a country which is called constitutional ; and what is meant by that is that your Government is not the despotic Government of a monarch, or the oligarchical Government of an oligarchy ; but that it is a Government, a large and essential portion of which is conducted by honestly elected representatives of the people ; and the grievance is this : that this constitution, so noble in its outline and so noble in its purpose, i.i defaced and deformed, and that when you look at it it seems in this respect absolutely worse than any other representative constitution existing in the world. For I believe there is no representation whatsoever at tkis moment in America or in Europe that is so entirely deformed from its natural, just, and beautiful proportions, as is the representative system of this countiy. What can be more clear than this — that the aristocracy of land and of wealth usurp the power in both Houses of Parliament ? The Lords repre- sent themselves, and generally the great landowners, with great fidelity. But, at the same time, we must admit and deplore that at least one-half of the House of Commons is in fast alliance with the majority in the House of Lords. Now, I have said before — T repeat it again — that there is no security whatsoever for liberty under any Government unless there be an essential power in a fair representation of the nation. An illustrious man, the founder of the great province, and now the great State of Pennsylvania William Penn — in the preface to his constitution for that province — a con- stitution of the widest and most generous freedom — uses these words : "Any Government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame where the laws rule, and the people are a party to the laws ; and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion. " Now, let us ask ourselves, can it be fairly said, can it be said without the most direct falsehood, that the people of this country, through the House of Commons, are really a party to the laws that are made ? It is not at all difjputed that only sixteen out of every one hundred men are now on the electoral rolls, and are able all other circumstances favouring, to give their vote at a general election and it is not disputed that half the House of Commons — that an absolute majority of that House — is elected by a number of electors not exceeding 3,ltogcther three men out of eyery hundred men in the United Kingdom. 72 I have taken the trouLle to make a little calculation from the facts con- tained in a very useful book published by a very old fiieud of mine, Mr. Acland, called the "Imperial Poll-Book," from which a great amount of valuable information may be had upon this question. I have taken out the number of votes given at the last contested election that has been held for every borough and county in the United Kingdom since the passing of the lleform Bill, and I lind that there being, so far as I know, at least one con- test in every place since that time, the whole number of votes given at the contest in every borough and county is short of the number of 900,000, which is about one in eight of the men in the country ; and if you deduct from that number the double votes, that is the men who vote for more than one county, or who vote for a county and a borough, in all probability there would not be registered more than 800, 000 votes at a general election in the United Kingdom where there was a contest in every county and in every borough. But I take the election of 1859, which is the last the particulars of which are given in the " Imperial Poll- Book," and I find there that the whole number of votes registered, so far as I could make them out, at the general election of 18o9, was under 370,000. Now, deduct the double votes from this, and probably there would not be at that general election, or at the general election of last year, more than 300,000 or 320,000 men who recorded their votes ? Some other allowances must be made. There arc boroughs, and there may be counties, in which the opinion falls so much on one side that there could be no chance of a contest. For example, in the borough wliich I am permitted to represent there vi^ould be no contest, and therefore that borough would not supply any figures to those figures which I am quoting. But there are many boroughs, as we all know, in which there is no contest ; in some boroughs there is no contest because there is no freedom of election. And there are many coi;nties in which there is no contest because there is no freedom of election in those counties. But I quote these numbers to show to you that when the Queen orders through her Ministers what is generally called an appeal to the country, it is at the very utmost an appeal to 800,000 electors, and in all probability the appeal is ansv/ered by registered voters numbering from 300,000 to 400,000. Well, after this, then, I undertake to say that the people are not, in the sense of our coustitution, a party to the laws, and that the Government of the United Kingdom, in the sense indicated in the (juota- tion that I have made from "William Penn's preface to his constitu- tion, is not free to this people. And let me tell you Avhat doubtless many men have not thought of, that there is no form of government much worse than the Government of a sham representation. A Parliament like our Parliament has members enough, and just enough of the semblance of repre- sentation, to make it safe for it to do almost anything it likes against the true interests of the nation. There is nothing so safe as a Parliament like this for the commission of what is evil. There is not representation enough to make it truly responsible to the intelligence, and the virtue, and the opinions of the nation. Take a case which is in the recollection of all of us. Is there any man in the world who believes for a moment that any monarch that ever sat on the English throne woidd have dared in 1815 to have passed 73 the corn law — to have brought into action in this city of London, horse, foot, and artillery — to have surrounded his own palace — and to have beaten off the people who were protesting against the enactment of that law ? But the Parliament of England did that, and a Parliament of landowners, for the express and only purpose of increasing their own renta^by the sacrifice of the comfort, the plenty, the health, and the life of the great body of the .people. But to come only to the last session of Parliament. We will not go back to the time before the Reform x\ct. We will only go to the last session of Parliament. Look at their responsibility then, and their sense of responsibility. Look at the moderation of that bill which was brought in by the late Government. Was it possible to have proposed a more moderate measure than that of the late Government ? Well, but what happened ? A Parliament of landowners and of rich men, who have Avholly despised that great national opinion which has been exhibited during the last three or four months, resisted that measure with a pertinacity never exceeded, and with an amount of intrigue, and I say of unfairness to the Government, which they durst not for one single night have attempted if they had felt any real responsibility to the people of this country. And now they resist np to this moment, and for aught I know may resist when they meet at the beginning of February next, and they may possibly resist until the dis- content which is now so general shall become universal, and that which is now only a great exhibition of opinion may become necessarily and inevitably a great and menacing exhibition of force. And these opponents of ours, many of them in Parliament openly, and many of them secretly in the yress, have charged iis with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They say we are the source of the danger which threatens ; and they have absolutely the effrontery to chai'ge me with being the friend of public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely, if there be one thing in a free country more clear than another, it is that any one of the people may speak openly to the people. If 1 .spoak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them — if I speak to the monopolists of power of their danger — am I not a wise counsellor — both to the people and to their rulers ? Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius or Etna, and I saw a hamlet, or a homestead stand- ing upon its slope, and I said to the dwellers in that hamlet, or in that homestead, You see that vapour which ascends from the summit of the mountain. That vapour may become a dense, black smoke that will obscure the sky. You see that trickling of lava from the crevices or fissures in the side of the mountain. That trickling of lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain. 1 hat muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of a violent convulsion that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities for which there is no resurrection, as history tells us dynasties and aristocracies have passed away and their name has been known no more for ever. If I say this to the dwellers ui)on the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which niake^ the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe ? 1 did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely ^\ arned the men that ^vere in danger. So, now, it is not 1 who am stimulating men to the violent pursuit of their 74 acknowledged constitutional rights. Wc arc merely about our lawful Inisi- ncss — and you are the citizens of a country that calls itself free, yet you arc citizens to whom is denied the greatest and the first blessing of the constitution under which you live. If the truth must be told, the Tory party is the turbulent party of this nation. I left the last session of Parliament just about the time when the present Ministers, successful in their intrigues, acceded to olhce — I left the Parliament with a feeling of sadness, of disgust, and of apprehension. I said to myself, I may as well judge of the future by the past. The Parliament of England will not do justice to the people until there happens something that will suddenly open their eyes. I remembered what took place in the year 1820 when the Duke of Wellington said : Either give political power and representation through Catholic members to the Catholics of the United Kingdom, or encounter the peril and loss of civil war in Ireland. Up to that moment Parliament had refused to do it. Then Parliament consented and the thing was done. In 1832 you were within twenty-four hours of revolution in this country. This great class which sits omnipotent in one House, and hardly less so in the other, might then, and probably would have been extinguished, and what there would have been left except the people it is difficult to imagine. In 184G, although every intelligent man in every country in the world admitted the justice and force of our arguments against the com la^', still it required the occurrence of a crushing and desolating famine in Ireland— a famine which destroyed as many lives in that country as woidd have been destroyetl by a great war, and which drove into exile as many of the people of that island ns would have been driven into exile by the most cruel and relentless conquest — it required all that before the Parliament of England, the men amongst whom I sit, and whose faces are as familiar to me as those of any person whom I know in life — I say that it required all that before Parliament would consent to give up that in- toleral)le wrong of taxing the bread of an industrious people. Now, suppose that the bill which was brought into the House last session as a franchise bill only — which was done, as was admitted by Lord Ptussell, in adoption of advice which I had publicly given to the Government, and which advice I believe was eminently sound, and ought to be followed whenever this question is dealt with again l)y a Liberal and honest Government — I say, suppose that that bill, instead of being met with every kind of luifair and ungenerous opposition, had been wisely accepted by the House of Commons and become law, what would have been the state of the country during the present autumn and winter. It would have been one of rejoicing and con- gratulation everywhere. Not because the bill included everybody and satisfied everybody, but all working men would have felt that the barrier created at the Reform Bill, if not absolutely broken down, was at least so much lowered that the exclusion was much less general and less offensive. You v/ould have had this result, that we, the people in these islands, would have been no longer two nations. We should have felt more — that hence- forth we are one people. Every element of strength in the country would have been immeasurably strengthened, and there would have been given even to the humblest of the unenfranchised a feeling of hope which would 75 have led him to believe in, and to strive after, something higher and better than that to which he had hitherto been able to attain. Now, who prevented this ? Surely we did not prevent it. We who thought we were speaking for the general good of the people, we accepted the measure with an honourable sincerity and lidelity. We said that it is good to the point to which it steps forward. It is perfectly honest; it is no trick or subterfuge. It will give satisfaction to some hundreds of thousands, and it will give that which is as great a boon — it will give hope to millions whom it does not include — and therefore, in perfect honourableness, we accepted that measure; and who opposed it ? None other could effectually oppose it than Lord Derby and the party of which he is the acknowledged and trusted leader. They and he opposed and rejected that bill, and they and he are responsible for what has been done since in the country as a necessary and inevitable consequence of that rejection. Lord Derby now stands nearest to the throne, and 1 venture to say that he is now not a strength but a weakness to that throne. By his conduct — and by the conduct of his party, which he adopts — he thwarted at once the benevolent intentions of the Crown and just expectations of the people. I confess that I am astonished at the conduct of the Tory party in this matter. When the bill was introduced into the House of Commons, it appeared to me to be the very last that any statesmen with a spark of sense or honesty could offer any opposition to, and C did not believe that on the other side of the House there was, I will say, if you like, bitter partisanship or stupidity enough to induce them to fight acom- bined battle with all whojwould join them for the purpose of rejecting that bill. Now, one would suppose that the present Govermnent had troubles enough on hand in what is called the sister country without urging the people to excitement here. Ireland, as I have described it before Irish- men, is the favoured field on which all the policy of the Tory party has been exhibited, displayed, and tried. Well, in Ireland the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended. Individual liberty, except by consent of the Executive, is abolished ; troops are pouring into the country ; ironclads, it is said, are ordered to the coast to meet some, I hope and believe, imaginary foe — and the country gentlemen and their families are rejjorted to be fleeing from their ancestral homes to find refuge in garrison towns ; and all this is the magni- ficent result of the policy of the party of which Lord Derby is the head and hope. And now even, up to this very last session of Parliament, that party had no remedy for this state of things but that ancient, and rude, and savage remedy, the remedy of military force. But with all this in Ireland, as I hope and believe, greatly exaggerated by some public writers, yet still with enough to cause pain and anxiety, was that a judicious course for the present party in power to create a great excitement in Great Britain ? I say that Lord Derby, as the representative of his party in Parliament, is himself the fomenter of discord, and that his party, and not our party, is at this moment the turbulent element in English political society. And let me tell this party — I tell them nothing from this i)latform that I have not told them upon the floor of the House of Commons — let me tell them that this question will not sleep. Some months ago there was a remarkable convention h^.-y^' »»»nV'* *.' ^%>*;;' ;i s.-'s. j^V a*-^ r ■' t\ i- ;.'5^' Am ^•/ V