YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift of William H. Alexander //. Jr. CI lue.O'ud'to C^i^t Cm. SPEECHES RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. AXTTHOR'S FOFTTLAJR EDITION SPEECHES On Questions of Public Policy THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN BRIGHT, M.P. Edited by JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS ' Be Just and Fear not ' Seventeenth Thousand Hon&on MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883 "l YALE OXFORD : BY E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY, PllINTERS TO THE "UNIVERSITY. 33c r! ~ £ PREFACE. The speeches which have been selected for publication in this volume possess a value, as examples of the art of public speaking, which no person will be likely to underrate. Those who may differ from Mr. Bright's theory of the public good will have no difficulty in acknowledging the clearness of his diction, the skill with which he arranges his arguments, the vigour of his style, the persuasiveness of his reasoning, and above all, the perfect candour and sincerity with which he expresses his political convictions. It seems likely that the course of events in this country will lead those, who may desire to possess influence in the conduct of public affairs, to study the art of public speaking. If so, nothing which can be found in English literature will aid the aspirant after tljis great faculty more than the careful and reiterated perusal of the speeches contained in this volume. Tried indeed by the effect produced upon any audience by their easy flow and perfect clearness, or analysed by any of those systems of criticism which under the name of ' rhetoric ' have been saved to us from the learning of the ancient world, these speeches would be admitted to satisfy either process. This is not the occasion on which to point out the causes which confer so great an artistic value on these compositions ; which give them now, and will give them hereafter, so high a place in English literature. At the present time nearly a hundred millions of the earth's inhabitants speak the English tongue. A century hence, and it will probably be the speech of nearly half the inhabitants of the globe. I think that no master of that language will occupy a loftier position than Mr. Bright ; that no speaker will teach with greater exactness the noblest and rarest of the social arts, the art of clear and persuasive exposition. But before this art can be attained (so said the greatest critic that the world has known), it is necessary that the speaker should secure the sympathies of his audience, should convince them of his statesmanship, should show that he is free from any taint of self- interest or dissimulation. These conditions of public trust still form, as heretofore, in every country of free thought and free speech, the foundation of a good reputation PREFACE. and of personal influence. It is with the fact that such are the characteristics of my friend's eloquence, that I have been strongly impressed in collecting and editing the materials of this volume. Since the days of those men of renown who lived through the first half of the seventeenth century, when the liveliest religious feeling was joined to the loftiest patriotism, and men laboured for their conscience and their country, England has witnessed no political career like that of Cobden and Bright. Cobden's death was a great loss to his country, for it occurred at a time when England could ill spare a conscientious statesman. Nations, however, cannot be saved by the virtues, nor need they be lost by the vices, of their public men. But Cobden's death was an irreparable loss to his friends — most of all to the friend who had been, in an inces sant struggle for public duty and truth, of one heart and of one purpose with him. Those who have been familiar with Cobden's mind know how wide was his knowledge, how true was his judgment of political events. The vast majority of those who followed his public career had but a scanty acquaintance with the resources of his sagacity and foresight. He spoke to the people on a few subjects only. The wisdom of Free Trade ; the necessity of Parliamentary Reform ; the dangerous tendency of those laws which favour the accumulation of land in few hands ; the urgent need for a system of national education ; the mischief of the mere military spirit ; the prudence of uniting communities by the multiplication of international interests ; the abandonment of the policy of diplomatic and military intermeddling ; the advocacy, in short, of the common good in place of a spurious patriotism, of selfish, local, or class aims ; formed the subject of Cobden's public utterances. But his intimate friends, and in particular his regular correspondents, were aware that his political criticism was as general as it was accurate. The loss then of his wise and lucid counsel was the greatest to the survivor of a personal and a political friendship which was continued uninterruptedly through so long and so active a career. At the commencement of Mr. Bright's public life, the shortsighted selfishness of a landlords' parliament was afflicting the United Kingdom with a continuous dearth. Labour was starved, and capital was made unproductive by the Com-laws. The country was tied to a system by which Great Britain and her Colonies deliberately chose the dearest market for their purchases. In the same spirit, the price of freights was wilfully heightened by the Navigation-laws. Important branches of home industry were crippled by prying, vexatious, and wasteful excises. And this system was conceived to be the highest wisdom ; or at any rate, to be so invincible a necessity that it could not be avoided or altered without danger. The country, if it were to make its way, could make it only because other nations were servile imitators of our commercial policy, and, in the vain hope of retaliation, were hindering their own progress. The foreign policy of Great Britain was suspicious and irritating, for it was secret, busy, and meddling, insolent to the weak, conciliatory, even truckling," to PREFACE. the strong. The very name of diplomacy is and has been odious to English Liberals, for by means of it a reactionary Government could check domestic reforms, and hinder the community of nations indefinitely. The policy of the Foreign Office was constantly directed towards embittering, if not embroiling, the relations between this and other countries. It is difficult to account for these intrigues, except on the ground that successive Governments were anxious to maintain political and social anomalies at home, while they were affecting to support ' the balance of power ' abroad. The abandonment of intervention if foreign politics was the beginning of agitation for domestic reforms. Perhaps no part of the public administration was worse than that of India. The great Company had lost its monopoly of trade in the Eastern seas, but retained its administrative powers over the subject races and dependent princes of India. Its system of finance was wasteful and oppressive. Its policy was that on aggression and annexation. In practice, the Government was irresponsible. Nobody listened to Indian affairs in Parliament, except on rare occasions, or for party purposes. The Governor-General did as he pleased. The President of the Board of Control did as he pleased. If the reader wishes to see how the former acted, Mr. Cobden's pamphlet, ' How Wars are got up in India,' will enlighten him. If it be necessary to inquire what the policy of the latter might be, the disastrous and disgraceful Affghan War is an illustration. Never perhaps was a war commenced more recklessly. It is certain that when loss and dishonour fell on the English arms, the statesmen who recommended and insisted on the war tried to screen themselves from just blame by the basest arts. The internal resources of India were utterly neglected. The Company collected part of its revenue from a land-tax, levied in the worst shape. In order to secure an income through a monopoly, it constrained the cultivation of certain drugs for which there was a foreign demand ; and neglected to encourage the cultivation of cotton, for which the home demand was. wellnigh boundless, and to which the Indian supply might be made to correspond. The Company constructed neither road nor canal. It did nothing towards maintaining the means of communication which even the native governments had adopted. It suffered the ancient roads and tanks to fall into decay. It neglected to educate the native gentry, much more the people. In brief, the policy of the Company in dealing with India was the policy of Old Spain with her Transatlantic possessions, only that it was more jealous and illiberal. Against these social and political evils, and many others which might be enu merated, a very small body of true and resolute statesmen arrayed themselves. Among these statesmen the most eminent were the two chiefs of the Anti-Corn- law agitation. Never did men lead a hope which seemed more forlorn. They had as opponents nearly the whole Upper House of Parliament, a powerful and com pact party in the Lower. The Established Church was, of course, against them. The London newspapers, at that time almost the only political power in the press, PREFACE. were against them. The * educated ' classes were against them. Many of the working people were unfriendly to them, for the Chartists believed that the repeal of the Corn-laws would lower the .price of labour. After a long struggle they gained the day ; for an accident, the Irish famine, rendered a change in the Corn- laws inevitable. But had it not been for the organisation of the League, the accident would have had no effect ; for it is a rule in the philosophy of politics that an accident is valuable only when the machinery for' making use of the accident is at hand. Calamities never teach wisdom to fools, they render it possible that the wise should avail themselves of the emergency. A similar calamity, long foreseen by prudent men, caused the political extinction of the East India Company. The joint action of the Board of Control and the Directors led to the Indian mutiny. The suppression of the Indian mutiny led to the suppression of the Leadenhall Street Divan. Another calamity, also foreseen by statesmen, the outbreak of the American Civil War, gave India commercial hope, and retrieved the finances which the Company's rule had thrown into hopeless disorder. I have selected the speeches contained in this volume, with a view to supplying the public with the evidence on which Mr. Bright's friends assert his right to a place in the front rank of English statesmen. I suppose that there is no better evidence of statesmanship than prescience ; that no fuller confirmation of this evidence can be found than in the popular acceptance of those principles which were once unpopular and discredited. A short time since, Lord Derby said that Mr. Bright was the real leader of the Opposition. It is true that he has given great aid to that opposition which Lord Derby and his friends have often en countered, and by which, to their great discredit, but to their great advantage, they have been constantly defeated. If Lord Derby is in the right, Mr. Bright is the leader of the People, while his Lordship represents a party which is reckless because it is desperate. The policy which Mr. Bright has advocated in these pages, and throughout a quarter of a century, a. policy from which he has never swerved, has at last been accepted by the nation, despite the constant resistance of Lord Derby and his friends. It embodies the national will, because it has attacked, and in many cases vanquished, institutions and laws which have become unpopular, because they have been manifestly mischievous and destructive. No one knows better how conservative and tolerant is public opinion in England towards tradi tional institutions, than Mr. Bright does ; or how indifferent the nation is to attacks on an untenable practice and a bad law, until it awakens to the fact that the law or the practice is ruinous. Mr. Bright's political opinions have not been adopted because they were popular. He was skilfully, and for a time successfully, maligned by Lord Palmerston, on account of his persevering resistance to the policy of the Russian War. But it is probable that the views he entertained at that time will find more enduring accept ance than those which Lord Palmerston and Lord Palmerston's colleagues promul- PREFACE. gated, and that he has done more to deface that Moloch, ' the balance of power,' than any other man living. Shortly after the beginning of the Planters' War, almost all the upper, and many of the middle classes, sympathised with the Slave owners' conspiracy. Everybody knows which side Mr. Bright took, and how judicious and far-sighted he was in taking it. But everybody should remember also how, when Mr. Bright pointed out the consequences likely to ensue from the cruise of the Alabama, he was insulted by Mr. Laird in the House of Commons ; the Mr. Laird who launched the Alabama, who has been the means of creating bitter enmity between the people of this country and of the United States, and has contrived to invest the unlawful speculation of a shipbuilder with the dignity of an international difficulty, to make it the material for an unsettled diplomatic question. There are many social and political reforms, destined, it may be hoped, to become matter of debate and action in a Reformed Parliament, towards the accom plishment of which Mr. Bright has powerfully contributed. There is that without which Reform is a fraud, the redistribution of seats ; that without which it is a sham, the ballot ; that without which it is possibly a danger, a system of national education, which should be, if not compulsory, so cogently expedient that it cannot be rejected. There is the great question of the distribution of land, its occupancy, and its relief from that pestilent system of game-preserving which robs the farmer of his profit and the people of their home supplies. There is the pacification of Ireland. The only consolation which can be gathered from the condition of that unhappy country is, that reforms, which are highly expedient in Great Britain, are vital in Ireland, and that they therefore become familiar to the public mind. There is the development of international amity and good-will, first between our selves and the people of our own race, next between all nations. There is the recognition of public duty to inferior or subject races, a duty which was grievously transgressed before and after the Indian mutiny, and has been still more atrociously outraged in the Jamaica massacre. Upon these and similar matters, no man who wishes to deserve the reputation of a just and wise statesman, — in other words, to fulfil the highest and greatest function which man can render to man, — can find a worthier study than the public career of an Englishman whose guiding principle throughout his whole life has been his favourite motto, ' Be just and fear not.' I have divided the speeches contained in this volume into groups. The materials for selection are so abundant, that I have been constrained to omit many a speech which is worthy of careful perusal. I have naturally given prominence to those subjects with which Mr. Bright has been especially identified, as, for example, India, America, Ireland, and Parliamentary Reform. But nearly every topic of great public interest on which Mr. Bright has spoken is represented in this volume. A statement of the views entertained by an eminent politician, who wields a vast influence in the country, is always valuable. It is more valuable when the utter ances are profound, consistent, candid. It is most valuable at a crisis when the PREFACE. people of these islands are invited to take part in a contest where the broad prin ciples of truth, honour, and justi.ce are arrayed on one side, and their victory is threatened by those false cries, those reckless calumnies, those impudent evasions which form the party weapons of desperate and unscrupulous men. All the speeches in this volume have been revised by Mr. Bright. The Editor is responsible for their selection, for this. Preface, and for the Index. JAMES E, THOROLD ROGERS. Oxford, June 30, 1868. -:-°g> very important matter, because, although he might throw open the nominations to the Indian service to the free competition of all persons in this country, yet if, when these persons get out to India, they are to become a covenanted ser vice, as that service now is constituted, i853- INDIA. I. and are to go on from beginning to end in a system of promotion by seniority — and they are to be under pretty much the same arrangement as at present — a great deal of the evil now existing will remain ; and the continuance of such a body as that will form a great bar to what I am very anxious to see, namely, a very much wider employment of the most intelligent and able men amongst the native population. The right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, made a long speech wholly in defence of the Indian Government ; and I cannot avoid making some remarks upon what he has stated, because I wholly dissent from a large portion of the observations which he has made. But the right hon. Gentleman, above all things, dreads that this matter should be delayed. Now I will just touch upon that point. The right hon. Gen tleman has said that he has not met any one who does not consider it highly desirable that the House should legis late upon the subject of the Government of India this year ; and that it will be a great evil if such legislation is post poned. In support of this view he produces a private letter from Lord Dalhousie upon the subject. Now I do not consider such evidence as by any means conclusive, because the House knows that Lord Dalhousie has been connected with the system that now exists. That noble Earl is also sur rounded by persons who are themselves interested in maintaining the present system. From his elevated position also in India — I do not mean his loca tion at Simlah — but from his being by his station removed from the mass of. the European population, and still more removed from the native population, I do not think it at all likely that Lord Dalhousie will be able to form a sounder opinion upon this question than persons- who have never been in India. In my opinion, no evil can possibly arise from- creating in the minds of the population of India a feeling that the question, of Indian Government is considered by the House of Commons to be. a grave and solemn question ; and I solemnly believe that if the decision on the ques tion be delayed for two years, so as to enable Parliament to make due in quiries as to the means of establishing a better form of government in India, it will create in the minds of all the intelligent natives of India a feeling of confidence and hope, and that whatever may be done by them in the way of agitation will be rather for the purpose of offering information in the most friendly and generous spirit, than of creating opposition to any Government legislation.. However, the question of delay is one which the House in all probability will be called upon to de cide on another occasion. But passing from that subject, I now come to the principle upon which the right hon. Gentleman founded his Motion. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was throughout that of an advocate of the Indian Government, as at present constituted ; and, if Mr. Melville had said everything that could possibly be dragged into the case, he could not have made it more clearly appear than the right hon. Gentleman has done that the Government of India has been uniformly worthy of the con fidence of> the country. My view of this matter, after a good deal of obser vation, is, that the Indian Government, composed of two branches, which the right hon. Gentleman does not propose to amalgamate into one, is a Govern ment of secrecy and irresponsibility to a degree that should not be tolerated in a country like this, where we have a constitutional and Parliamentary Go vernment. I have- not the least idea in any observations which I may make either in this. House or elsewhere of bringing a charge against the East India Company — that is to say, against any individual member of the Board of Direotors, as if they were anxious to misgovern India. I never had any such suspicion. I believe that the twenty- four gentlemen who constitute the Board of Directors would act just about as well as any other twenty-four persons SPEECHES OP JOHN BRIGHT. Jdnb: 3. elected by the same process, acting under the same influencesj and surrounded by the same difficulties — having to act with another and independent body--- the Board of Control. Neither am I hostile to the Board of Control, because I think that the duty imposed upon it is greater than any such body can properly perform. The right hon. Gentleman, the enormous labours of whose office could not be accomplished by any one man, coming into office in December, and having to propose a new Govern ment for India in the month of May or June, must have found it extremely difficult to make himself master of the question. But beyond this the House should bear in mind, that during the last thirty years there has been a new President of the Board of Control every two years. Nay, in the course of last year there were no less than three Presidents of the Board of Control. Thus that Board seems framed in such a manner as to make it altogether impossible that any one man should be able to conduct it in the way in which it ought to be conducted. Beyond this, the President of that Board has to act in conjunction with the Court of Directors. Without saying anything which would impute blame to any party, it must be obvious that two such bodies combined can never cany on the government of India wisely, and in accordance with those principles which have been found necessary in the government of this country. The right hon. Gentleman has been -obliged to admit that the theory of the old Government of India was one which could not be defended, and that everybody considers it ridi culous and childish. I .am not at all certain that the one that is going to be established is in any degree better. It was in 1784 that this form of govern ment was established, amid the fight of factions. In 1813 it was continued for twenty years longer, during a time when the countiy was involved in des perate hostilities with France. In 1S33 another Bill, continuing that form of government, passed through Parliament immediately after the hurricane which carried the Reform Bill- All these cir cumstances rendered it difficult for the Government, however honestly disposed, to pass the best measure for the govern ment of India. But all the difficulties. which then existed appear to me wholly to have vanished. Never has any question come before Parliament more entirely free from a complication of that nature, or one which the House has the opportunity of more quietly and calmly considering, than the question now be fore them. I should have been pleased if the right hon. Gentleman had given the House the testimony of some two or three persons on his own side of the question. But, as he has not done so, I will trouble the House by referring to some authorities in support of my own views. I will first refer to the work of Mr. Campbell, which has already been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman. It is a very interesting book, and gives a great deal of in formation. That writer says — ' The division of authority between the Board of Control and the Court of Di rectors, the large number of directors, and the peculiar system by which measures are originated in the Court, sent for approval' to the Board, then back again to the Court, and so on, render all deliverances very slow and difficult ; and when a measure is dis cussed in India, the announcement that it has been referred to the Court of Directors. is often regarded as an indefinite postpone-, ment. In fact, it is evident that (able and experienced as are many of the individual' directors) twenty-four directors in one place, and a Board of Control in another, are not likely very speedily to unite in one opinion upon any doubtful point.' That, I think, is likely to be the opinion: of any man on the Government of India. There is another authority to which I will refer, Mr. Kaye, who has. also-. written a very good book. It was actually distributed by the Court of Directors; I have therefore a right to consider it a fair representation of their i853- INDIA. I. views of what was dbne, especially as the Chairman of the Court has given me a copy of the book. Mr. Kaye, in referring to the double Government which existed in Bengal in 1772, makes Use of these expressions. When I first read them, I thought they were a quota tion from my own speeches : — 'But enlightened as were the instruc tions thus issued to the supervisors, the supervision was wholly inadequate to the requirements of the case. The double Government, as I have shown, did not work well. It was altogether a sham and an imposture. It was soon to be de molished at a blow. . . . The double Government had, by this time, fulfilled its mission. It had introduced an incredible amount of disorder and corruption into the State, and of poverty and wretchedness among the people ; it had embarrassed our finances, and soiled our character, and was now to be openly recognised as a failure.' This is only as to Bengal. The follow ing are the words he uses in respect to the double Government at home :¦ — ' In respect of all transactions with foreign PoWers^-all matters bearing upon questions of peace and war-^the President of the Board of Control has authority to originate such measures as he and his colleagues in the Ministry may consider expedient. In such cases he acts pre sumedly in concert with the Secret Com mittee of the Court of Directors' — a body composed of the chairman, deputy-chair man, and senior member of the Court. The Secret Committee sign the despatches which emanate from the Board, but they have no power to withhold or to alter them. They have hot even the power to record their dissent. In fact, the functions of the Committee are only those which, to use the words of a distinguished member of the Court (the late Mr. Tucker), who deplored the mystery and the mockery of a system which obscures responsibility and deludes public opinion, could as well be performed " by a secretary and a seal." ' Further on he says — ' In judging of responsibility, we should remember that the whole foreign policy of the East India Company is regulated by the Board of Control ; that in the solution of the most vital questions — questions of peace and war — affecting the finances of the country, and, therefore, the means of internal improvement, the Court of Di rectors have no more power than the mayor and aldermen .of any corporate town. India depends less on the will of the twenty-four than on one man's caprice — here to-day and gone to-morrow^ knocked over by a gust of Parliamentary uncertainty — the mistaken tactics of a leader, or negligence of a whipper-in. The past history of India is a history of revenue wasted and domestic improvement ob structed by War.' This is very much what I complain of. I admit the right of the East India Company to complain of many things done by the Board of Control ; and I am of opinion, that if the House left the two bodies to combat one ahothef, they would at last come to an accurate perception of what they both are. The East India Company accused the Board of Control of making wars and squan dering the revenue which the Company collected. But Mr. Kaye said that Mr. Tucker deplored the mystery and the mockery of a system which obscured re sponsibility and deluded public opinion. It is because of this concealment, of this delusion practised upon public opinion, of this evasion of public responsibility and Parliamentary control, that you have a state of things in India which the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) has described, when he says that the Company manages the revenues, collects the taxes, and gets from 2o,ooo,booZ. to 30,000,000/. a^year, and nobody knows how much more. But, whatever it is, such is the system of foreign policy pursued by the Board of Control — that is to say, by the gentlemen who drop down there for six or eight or twelve months, never beyond two years — that, whatever revenues are collected, they are squandered on unnecessary and ruin ous wars, till the country is brought to SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 3, a state of embarrassment and threatened bankruptcy. That is the real point which the House will have to consider. With regard to some of the details of the Government plan, we should no doubt all agree : but this -question of divided responsibility, of concealed re sponsibility, and of no responsibility whatever, that is the real pith of the matter. The House should take care not to be diverted from that question. [Mr. Mangles : ' Produce your own plan.'] An hon. Gentleman has asked me to produce my plan. I will not comply with that request, but will follow the example of a right hon. Gentleman, a great authority in this House, who once said, when similarly challenged, that he should produce his plan when he was called in: I believe that the plan before the House -to-night was concocted by the Board of Control and the hon. Member for Guildford and his Colleagues; I shall, therefore, confine myself at .present to the discussion of that plan. Some persons are disposed very much (at least I am afraid so) to undervalue the particular point which I am endeavouring to bring before the House ; and they seem to fancy that it does not much matter what shall be the form of government in India, since the population of that country will always be in a condition of great impoverish ment and much suffering; and that whatever is done must be done there, and that after all — after having con quered 100,000,000 of people — it is not in our power to interfere for the improve ment of their condition. Mr. Kaye, in his book, commences the first chapters with a very depreciating account of the character of the Mogul Princes, with a view to show that the condition of the people of India was at least as unfavour able under them as under British rule. I will cite one or two cases from wit nesses for whose testimony the right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood) must have respect. Mr. Marshman is a gen tleman who is well known as possessing a considerable amount of information on Indian affairs, and has, I presume, come over on purpose to give his evidence on the subject. He was editor of a news paper which was generally considered throughout India to be the organ of the Government ; in that newspaper, the Friend of India, bearing the date 1st April, 1852, the following statement appears : — ' No one has ever attempted to contra dict the fact that the condition of the Bengal peasantry is almost as wretched and degraded as it is possible to conceive ¦ — living in the most miserable hovels, scarcely fit for a dog-kennel, covered with tattered rags, and unable, in too many instances, to procure more than a single meal a-day for himself and family. The Bengal ryot knows nothing of the most ordinary comforts of life. We speak with out exaggeration when we affirm, that if the real condition of those who raise the harvest, which yields between 3,000,000/. and 4,ooo,oooZ. a-year, was fully known, it would make the ears of one who heard thereof tingle.' It has been said that in the Bengal Presidency the natives are in a better condition than in the other Presidencies ; and I recollect that when I served on the Cotton Committee, the evidence taken before it being confined to the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, it was then said that if evidence had been taken about the Bengal Presidency it would have appeared that the condition of the natives was better. But I believe that it is very much the same in all the Presidencies. I must say that it is my belief that if a country be found possess ing a most fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and that, notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and suffering, the chances are that there is some fundamental error in the govern ment of that country. The people of i India have been subjected by us, and how to govern them in an efficient and beneficial manner is one of the most important points for the consideration of the House. From the Report of the Indian Cotton Committee it appears that 1853- INDIA. I. nearly every witness — and the witnesses were nearly all servants of the Company — gave evidence as to the state of des titution in which the cultivators of the soil lived. They were in such an abject condition that they were obliged to give 40 or 50 per cent, to borrow money to enable them to put seed into the ground. I can, if it were necessary, bring any amount of evidence to prove the miser able condition of the cultivators, and that in many places they have been compelled to part with their personal ornaments. Gentlemen who have writ ten upon their condition have drawn a frightful picture, and have represented the persons employed to collect the revenue as coming upon the unhappy cultivators like locusts, and devouring everything. With regard to the con sumption of salt, looking at the Friend of India, of April 14, 1853, it appears that it is on the decline. In the year 1849-50, the consumption was 205,517 tons; in 1850-51, 186,410 tons; and in 1851-2, 146,069 tons. Thus, in the short period of three years, there has been a decrease in the consumption amounting to 59,448 tons, which will in volve a loss to the revenue of 4i6,i36/.1 Salt is one of those articles that people in India will use as much of as they can afford, and the diminution in the con sumption appears to me to be a decided proof of the declining condition of the population, and that must affect ad versely the revenue of the Indian Go vernment. Now there is another point to which the right hon. Gentleman has slightly alluded; it is connected with the administration of justice, and I will read from the Friend of India a case illustra tive of the efficiency of the police. The statement is so extraordinary that it would be incredible but for the circum stance of its having appeared in such a respectable journal : — ' The affair itself is sufficiently uninter esting. A native Zemindar had, or fancied 1 The Friend of India was incorrect in this statement: the real decline in the con sumption' of salt was about 12,000 tons. he had, some paper rights over certain lands occupied by a European planter, and, as a necessary consequence, sent a body of armed retainers to attack his factory. The European resisted in the same fashion by calling out his retainers. There was a pitched battle, and several persons were wounded, if not slain ; while the Darogah, the appointed guardian of the peace, sat on the roof of a neighbouring hut and looked on with an interest, the keenness of which was probably not diminished by the fact of his own immunity from the pains and perils of the conflict. There has been a judicial investigation, and some body will probably be punished, if not by actual sentence, by the necessary disburse ment of fees and douceurs, but the evil will hot be thereby suppressed or even abated. The incident, trifling as it may appear — and the fact that it is trifling is no slight evidence of a disorganised state of society — is an epitome in small type of our Bengal police history. On all sides, and in every instance, we have the same picture — great offences, the police indif ferent or inefficient, judicial investigations protracted till the sufferers regret that they did not patiently endure the injury, and somebody punished, but no visible abate ment of the crime. The fact is, and it is beginning at last to be acknowledged everywhere, except perhaps at home, that Bengal does not need so much a "reform" or reorganisation of the police, as a police, a body of some kind, specially organised for the preservation of order. Why the change is so long postponed, no one, not familiar with the arcana of Leadenhall- street and Cannon-row, can readily ex plain.' Mr. Marshman uses the expression, ' the incident, trifling as it, may appear ; ' but I will ask the House if they can conceive a state of society in a country under the Government of England where a scene of violence such as has been described could be considered trifling ? The right hon. Gentleman has, while admitting that the want of roads in some districts of India is a great evil, endeavoured to show that a great deal SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 3, has been done to merrtedy the deficiency, and that on some roads the mails travel as fast as ten miles an hour. Now, I believe that if the speed were token at five miles an hour, it weuld be nearer the truth ; -and I will beg the House to excuse me if I .read another extract from the Friend of India of April 14, 185.3 : — " The Grand Trunk, however, is the only road -upon which a good speed, has been attained, remarks being attached to all of the remainder strongly indicative of the want of improved means of commu nication. From Shergotty to Gyah, and Gyah to Patna, for instance, the pace is four miles and a half an hour ; but then " the road is cutcha, and the slightest shower of rain renders it puddly and im practicable for speedy transit." From Patna to Benares the official account is the same, but the rate increases at one stage to five miles and a half. The southern roads are, however, in the worst condition, the mails travelling to Je'llasore at three miles an hour, or less than a groom can walk ; and even between Calcutta and Baiaset the rate rises to only four miles and a half an hour, while everywhere we have such notices as " road intersected by numerous unbridged rivers and nullahs," "road has not been repaired for these many years," " road not repaired for years," the " road in so bad a state, and so much intersected by rivers and nullahs, that no great improvement in the speed of the mails can be effected." And yet the surplus Ferry Funds might, one would think, if economically admin istered, be sufficient to pay at least for the maintenance of the roads already, in exist ence. New roads, we fear, are hopeless until Parliament fixes a minimum, which must be expended on them ; and even then it may be allowed to accumulate, as the Parliamentary grant for education has done at Madras.' The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the subject of irrigation ; and I hold in my hand an extract from the Report of the Commission which inquired into the subject. The Report states that — ' The loss of revenue by the famine of 1832-33 is estimated atleast at 1,000,000/. sterling ; the loss of property at a far greater -amount-; of life, at 300,000 or 300,0004 and of cattle, at 200,000 at the lowest, in Guntore alone, besides the ruin of 70,000 houses. The famine of the Northern Circars in 1833, and that of the north-western provinces of India at a later period, prove" with irresistible force that irrigation in this country is properly a question, not of profit, but of existence.' The right hon. Gentleman has also quoted from aReport by Colonel Cotton on the subject of the embankment of the Kistna. Now, the embankment of the Kistaa has been recommended as far back as the year 1792, and from that time bias been repeatedly brought for ward. The whole estimate for .it is but 155,000/., and it was not until September, 1852, that the preliminary operations were commenced. I find this officer stating with respect to the district of Rajamundry, that if a particular im provement that had been recommended above twenty years ago had been carried out, it would have saved the lives of up wards of 100,000 persons who perished in the famine of 1837. I say that such facts as these are a justification of stronger language than any in which I have indulged in reference to the neglect of the Indian Government whether in this House or out of it. The right hon. Gentleman candidly informs us that this very embankment has been recently ^ stopped by order of the Madras Govern ment, because the money was wanted for other purposes — the Burmese war, no doubt. In the year 1849 it was re ported that Colonel Cotton wrote a despatch to the Madras Government, in which, after mentioning facts connected with the famines, he insisted, in strong and indignant language, that the im provements should go on. I believe that there was an allusion in the letter to the awkward look these things would have, pending the discussions on the Government of India, and I understand that it was agreed that the original letter, which countermanded the im provements, should be withdrawn, and i«53- INDIA. I. 9 that then the remonstrance from Colonel Cotton should also be withdrawn. A gentleman who has been in the Com pany's service, and who has for some time been engaged in improvements, chiefly in irrigation, writes in a private letter as follows : — * From my late investigations on this subject, I feel convinced that the state of our communications is the most important subject which calls for consideration. I reckon that India now .pays, for want of cheap transit, a sum equal to the whole of the taxes ; so that by reducing its cost to a tenth, which might easily be done, we should as good as abolish all taxes. I trust the Committees in England are going on well, in spite of the unbecoming efforts which have been made to circumscribe and quash their proceedings. Woe be to India, indeed, if this opportunity is lost ! Much will depend upon you — g»§$~ INDIA. IV. HOUSE OF COMMONS, AUGUST i, 1859. From Hansard. [On August 1 Sir Charles Wood made his financial statement on India to the House of Commons. One of his proposals was that the Government should be empowered to raise 5,000,000/. in the United Kingdom in order to meet the demands of the present year. The Loan Bill passed through both Houses.] I have so often addressed the House upon the question of India that I feel some hesitation in asking a portion of the time of the Committee this evening. But notwithstanding an observation of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India that he does not see anything gloomy in the future of India, I confess that to my view the question assumes yearly a greater magnitude, and I may say a greater peril. I think, therefore, that having given some attention to this subject in years past, I may be per mitted to bring my share, be its value more or less, to the attempt which we are now making to confront this great evil. When we recollect how insufficient are the statements which he has from India, the right hon. Gentleman has given us as clear an account of the finances of India as it was possible for him to do, and looking at them in the most favourable point of view we come to this conclusion : — We have what we have had for twenty years, only more rapidly accumulating, deficit on deficit and debt on debt. The right hon. Gentleman told the Committee that when he left the Go vernment of India, I think in 1855, everything was in a most satisfactory condition. Well, it did happen in that year, perhaps by some of that kind of management which I have observed occasionally in Indian finance, that the deficit was brought down to a sum not exceeding 150,000/. [Sir C. Wood : ' There was a surplus of 400,000/.'] The deficit, I believe, before the mutiny was 143,000/. But, if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to take the three years preceding the mutiny, I think that will give a much fairer idea of the real state of the case, and it is not the least use shutting our eyes to the real state of the case, because some day or other it will find us out, or we shall find it out. The real state of the case in the three years preceding the mutiny, 1855, 1856, and 1857, ending the 30th of April, is a deficit of 2,823,000/., being an average not very far short of 1,000,000/. a-year. That is the state of things immediately after the right hon. Gentleman left office. I do not in the least find fault with him. He did not make the deficit, but I merely state this to show that things are not at the moment in that favourable state which the right hon. Gentleman would 46 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. induce the Committee to believe. Keep ing our attention to that period, there is another point of view, which is also very important. It appears to me that any Government must be an excessively bad Government which cannot defray its expenses out of the taxes which it levies on its people. We know, and every one has for years known, that in India there is a source of revenue, not from taxes levied on the people, but from opium, and which is very like the revenue derived by the Peruvian Go vernment from guano. If we turn to those three years and see what relation the expenditure of the Government had to taxes levied on the people of India, we shall find, though we may hear that the taxes are not so much as we im agine, or that the people are extremely poor, or that the Government is very extravagant — we shall find that the sum levied for the sale of opium and transit was no less than 10,500,000/., and if we add that to the 2,800,000/., we get a sum of 13,300,000/., which is the exact sum which the Government of India cost in those three years over and above what was raised from the people by actual taxation. I say that this is a state of things which ought to cause alarm, because we know, and we find it stated in the last despatches, that the income derived from opium is of a precarious character, and from the variation of cli mate in India, or from a variation of policy in the Chinese Government, that revenue may suddenly either be very much impaired or be cut off altogether. The right hon. Gentleman brings us to the condition in which we are now, and it may be stated in the fewest possible words to be this,— that the debt of India has been constantly rising, and that it amounts now to 100,000,000/. sterling. ['No, no!'] The right hon. Gentleman said 95,000,000/., but he said there would be 5,000,000/. next year, and I will undertake to say that it is fair to argue on the basis that the debt of India at this moment is about 100,000,000/., that there is a deficit of 12,000,000/. this year, and that there may be expected to be a deficit of 10,000,000/. next year. It is not to be wondered at that it should be difficult to borrow money on Indian account. I am not surprised at the hon. Mem ber for Kendal (Mr. Glyn) being so lively in the House to-night, and other hon. Gentlemen connected with the City, who, I understand, have been impressing on the Secretary of State the fact that money cannot be had in the City for the purpose for which he wants it. I do not wonder that it is difficult to raise money on Indian account. I should think it extraordinary if it could be borrowed without a high rate of interest. That it can be bor rowed at all can only arise from the fact that England, whatever disasters she gets into, generally contrives, by the blood of her soldiers or by the taxation of her people, to scramble through her difficulties, and to maintain before the world, though by enormous sacrifices, a character for good faith which is scarcely held by any other country in the world. With regard to the question of an Imperial guarantee, I take an opposite view from the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) on that particular point, though I agree with what he said as to certain expenses thrown on the Indian Government. Last year I referred to the enormous expense of the Affghan war — about 15,000,000/. — the whole of which ought to have been thrown on the taxation of the people of England, because it was a War commanded by the English Cabinet, for objects supposed to be English, but which, in my opinion, were of no advan- ! tage either to England or India. It was ' most unjust that this enormous burden should have been thrown upon the finances of the Indian Government. But I do not oppose an Imperial guarantee 4 j because I particularly sympathize with the English taxpayers in this matter. -J I think the English taxpayers have generally neglected all the affairs of India, and might be left to pay for it. But there was no justice in imposing on the unfortunate millions of India the 1859. INDIA. IV. 47 burden of a policy with which they had nothing to do, and which could not bring any one of them a single handful of rice more — it did bring them rather less than more — than they would have eaten without it. But I object to an Imperial guarantee on this ground, — if we let the Services of India, after ex hausting the resources of India, put their hands into the pockets of the English people, the people of England having no control over the Indian ex penditure, it is impossible to say to what lengths of unimagined extrava gance they would go ; and in endea vouring to save India may we not go far towards ruining England ? But look at this question of Indian finance from another point of view. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India have both referred to the enormous amount of the whole taxation of India taken by the Military Service. I believe it has been shown that at this moment almost, if not altogether, the whole of the net revenue of India is being ab sorbed by the Military Service of that empire ; that not a farthing is left out of the whole net revenue of India to pay the expenses of the civil government or the public creditor. If we leave out the opium duty, perhaps we shall see how far the Military Service bears on the taxation of India ; we shall see that more than its net amount is absorbed by the Military Service. That is a stale of things that has never existed in any other country or among any other people, for any considerable period, without bringing that country to anarchy and ruin. We have been told by the Governor-General that the great bulk of the revenue of India is not elastic; that with regard to the land-tax there has been for a long period no increase in it ; that, on the contrary, that large source of income has decreased. He tells us, further, that the army cannot, at present, be largely reduced with safety. If so, what is the end to which we must come? Either the Government of India must come to an end, or England itself must become tributary to India. Seeing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has within the last fortnight asked 70,000,000/. of the English taxpayer for the expenses of the English Govern ment, to ask nine or ten millions more for the Government of India would cer tainly cause great dissatisfaction in this country. The picture is, to my mind, an alarming one, notwithstanding the cheerful view taken of it by the Secretary for India ; and it has filled many besides myself with dismay. Now, looking round for modes of escape from this position, I believe they exist, if we had the courage to adopt them. An hon. Friend has asked me, ' Is there nobody to tell the House of Commons the truth on this matter?' I might ask why he has not done it himself. I suppose he is afraid of being thought rash; but his advice is, that the Government should re-establish the independence of the Punjab, recall the Ameers of Scinde, restore the Govern ment of the King of Oude, giving to it the dependency of Nagpore. I confess, whether it be rash or not, that I think it would be wise to restore the Govern ment of the Punjab and to give inde pendence to that province which is called Scinde, because as no revenue is received from that part of the country in excess of the expense which its re tention causes to this country, we should endeavour to bring our dominions in India within a reasonable and manage able compass. No policy can be more lunatic than the policy of annexation we have pursued of late years in India, and the calamity we are now meeting is the natural and inevitable consequence of the folly we have committed. It is not easy for great generals and states men who have been made earls and marquesses and had bronze statues put up in their honour in our public squares — it is not easy for the statesmen who have done all this to turn round and reverse it all ; they have not the moral courage to do it ; it might be an act of peril ; it might appear a descent from the summit of empire and be wrongly 4-8 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST I, construed throughout the world. But as a question of finance and good go vernment we should, a few years hence, admit that it was a sound policy. But I will not pursue this subject, for I may fairly take it for granted that the House of Commons and the Government of England are not likely to take such a course till we are reduced to some extremity even greater than that which now meets us. But there is another course that may fairly be recommended. It is to take India as it is, the empire with all your annexations as it stands, and to see if it is not possible to do something better with it than you have done before, and to give it a chance in future years of redeeming not only the character of the Government but its financial and legislative position. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) says there cannot be any great diminution in the expenditure for the Civil Service of India ; but I do not in the least agree wi.th the Secretary for India when he says that the gentle men of the Civil Service in that country are not overpaid. Every one knows that they are overpaid; except some very high-salaried bishops of whom we have heard, no men are so grossly over paid as the officials of the Civil Service in India. The proof of this may be found everywhere. Look at the Island of Ceylon ; there the duties are as ar duous and the climate as unfavourable as in India ; yet the Government does not pay its officials there more than one-half or two-thirds of the salaries they are paid in India. There are in India itself many hundreds of Euro peans, the officers of the Indian army, all the Indian clergy, and missionaries ; there are also English merchants, carry ing on their business at rates of profit not much exceeding the profits made in this country. But the Civil Service of the Indian Government, like everything privileged and exclusive, is a pampered body ; and, notwithstanding it has pro duced some few able men who have worthily done their duty, I do not think the Civil Service of India deserves the loud praise we have so frequently heard awarded to it by speakers in this House; Now if you could reduce the expense of the Civil Service by any considerable amount, the best thing you could do with the money would be to increase the establishment by sending a greater number of competent persons as magis trates, collectors, and officials into the distant provinces, and thereby double the facilities for good government in those districts. If you could reduce the income of the Civil Service one half, you could for the same money have a more efficient Service throughout India than at present. You might not save money, but you would get a more complete Service for it. But the military question the House of Commons will certainly have to take in hand ; though Secretaries for India are afraid to grapple with it. I am not astonished that they feel some hesitation in doing so, for from every one con nected with the Military Service they would hear the strongest objections to reducing the number of the troops. But let me ask the Committee to consider what it has just heard. Before the Revolt the European troops in India numbered 45,000 and the Native troops 250,000 ; now the 45,000 European troops are 110,000, and the 250,000 Native soldiers are raised to 300,000; What was it that we heard during the Indian mutiny ; what was the cause of all the letters that appeared in the news papers ? Every man said that the great evil was having a Native army far larger than was required. That has been the source of peril, and that was the real cause of the mutiny. Now we have even a larger portion of this most pe rilous element than we had before. The authorities of India do not appear to have learnt anything from the mutiny, or they have learnt that all that was said in this House and in this country was untrue, because they have 50,000 more Native troops than they had be fore the mutiny. Therefore, the mode .of argument appears to be this : — A Native army was the cause of the i859. INDIA. IV. 49 mutiny, the cause of all our perils, and now it is necessary to have more of it ; and, as that is the perilous element, of course 45,000 troops are not sufficient to keep them in check ; therefore, you have at present 110,000; and certain officers who were examined, and the Commissioners who reported, recom mended that you should always have at least 80,000 Europeans there. If we are only to have one body of troops to watch another, it seems to me there can be no hope of any diminution of our military force, nor. any real reduc tion in our expenditure. Why is it that you require all this army ? Let me ask the Committee to look at the matter as sensible men of business. The Revolt, which has been such a terrible affair, has been suppressed. It was suppressed mainly by the 45,000 men in India, and not by the 1 10,000 you have succeeded in placing there at a later period. More than that, there is not at the present moment any alarming amount of dis satisfaction in India, or at least the dissatisfied are dispirited, and have lost all hope of resisting the power of Eng land, and must for a long period, I think, remain wholly dispirited. At the same time, you have disarmed the people over a vast province. There are millions of people in India, a great number of whom were previously in possession of arms, who do not now possess a single weapon. I have seen in the last accounts, only a day or two since, a statement that not less than 1,400 forts in the kingdom of Oude alone have been destroyed, and we know that many more have been de stroyed in other parts. There is at this moment no power for combined organized armed resistance against you, except that which is in the Native army, which the Indian Government has been building up of late to a greater extent than ever. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) spoke of one point — the great importance of which I admit— the want of confidence and sympathy that must have arisen between the two races in consequence of the transactions of the last two years. The shock of revolt must have created great suspicion and hatred and fear, and there is nothing out of which panic grows so easily as out of those con ditions. I believe that is the case in India, and perhaps there are indications of something of the kind at home. There is a panic, therefore, and neither the Governor-General nor the Civil Ser vice nor military officers can make up their minds that they are safe, recol lecting the transactions of the past two years, in having a less military force than we now have in India. But if you ask those gentlemen they will never say they have enough. There are admirals here, as we know, who are perfectly wild about ships, with whom arithmetic on such a question goes for nothing. They would show you in the clearest possible manner that you have not ships enough. So also, although I am glad to find not to the same extent, as to troops. Some one said the other night, in answer to an hon. Gentleman, about an increased force of 2 particular kind, ' There is nothing like leather,' and it is so. I say naval officers and military officers are not the men to whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer should de pute the great and solemn duty of de termining what amount shall be ex pended for military purposes. There is not a country in the world that would not have been bankrupt long since, and plunged into irretrievable ruin, if the military authorities had been allowed to determine the amount of military force to be kept up, and the amount of revenue to be devoted to that purpose. I have another objection to this great army, and I now come to the question of policy, which, I am sorry to say for India, has not been touched upon. I do not think this is a question to be merely settled by a very clever manner of giving the figures of the case. Those figures depend upon the course you in tend to pursue, upon the policy which the Government intends to adopt, in that country. With this great army two things are certain — we can have 50 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST I, no reform of any kind in the Govern ment of India, nor an improved conduct on the part of the English in India towards the Natives of India. With a power like this — 1 10,000 English troops, with an English regiment within an hour's reach of each civil servant, you will find that the supremacy of the con quering race will be displayed in the most offensive manner. Everybody connected with India — the hon. Member for Devonport (Sir Erskine Perry), the hon. Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes)— all who are connected with India, know well that when the English were feeble in India, when they had not a great army in the field or a great revenue to support it, every Englishman treated the Natives by whom he was surrounded rather with the feeling that he was an intruder in the country, and that it was not only proper but absolutely necessary to deal in a conciliatory and just manner with the great body of the Natives of India ; but precisely as our power increased the conduct of our countrymen changed, and I find in the excellent book of Mr. Shore that thirty years ago he describes this as the very source of the growing ill feeling between the races in India. It has grown from that time to this, until we have an irritation and animo sity which in our time, it may be, we shall see very little removed, and which may perhaps never be wholly allayed. A Government, then, with this vast army, must always be in a difficulty. Lord Canning — Lord anybody else — cannot turn his attention to anything but this wearing, exasperating question of how money is to be got for the next quarter, to pay this army. He cannot turn his attention in any way to reforms, and I am convinced that this House must insist upon the Government re ducing its army, whatever be the risk. A large army will render it impossible for you to hold the country, for you will have a constantly increasing debt, and anarchy must inevitably overwhelm you in the end. A small army, a mo derate, conciliatory, and just Govern ment, with the finances in a prosperous condition ; — and I know not but that this country may possess for genera tions and centuries a share, and a large share, in the government of those vast territories which it has conquered. As to measures of reduction, I admit that it is of little use attempting them unless they are accompanied by other changes. Here I have a charge to bring against the Indian Government. I did hope when the noble Lord spoke to-night that he would have told us something which I am sure he must have known ; that there is no such thing as a real Go vernment in India at all ; that there is no responsibility either to a public opinion there, or to a public opinion at home; and that therefore we cannot expect a better policy or happier results. Let hon. Gentlemen imagine a Government like that in India, over which the payers of the taxes have not the slightest control; for the great body of the people in India have, as we all know, no control in any way over the Government, Neither is there any independent Eng lish opinion that has any control over the Government, the only opinions be ing those of the Government itself, or those of the Military and Civil Ser vices, and chiefly of the latter. They are not the payers of taxes; they are the spenders and the enjoyers of the taxes, and therefore the Government in India is in the most unfortunate position possible for the fulfilment of the great! duties that must devolve upon every wise and just Government. The Civil Service, being privileged, is arrogant, and I had almost said tyrannous, as any one may see who reads the In dian papers, which mainly represent the opinion of that Service and the Military Service, which, as everywhere else where it is not checked by the re solution of the taxpayers and civilians, is clamorous and insatiable for greater expenditure. The Governor-Generaf himself, — and I do not make any at tack upon Lord Canning, although I could conceive a Governor-Generaf more suited to his great and difficult 1859. INDIA. IV. 51 position, — he is a creature of these very Services. I now ask the noble Lord to re member a case which happened during the time he held office, and if the Com mittee will allow me, for the sake of illustration, to refer to it, I do not think it will be any waste of time. Hon. Gentlemen will recollect that during the last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. J. B. Smith), who has paid great attention to Indian subjects, put a question to the noble Lord relating to the annexa tion of « small territory called Dhar. What has been the course of events in relation to that case ? The news of the annexation reached this country on the 20th of March last year. Upon the 23rd the question was put in this House, when the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Baillie), then Under-Secretary, re plied, that the Government had just been informed of it by the Governor- General, and that he was solely re sponsible for the act, the Government here having had no previous commu nication upon it. Upon the nth of June the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) announced to the House, in answer to a question, that he had disallowed the annexation of Dhar. The" despatch disallowing it has since been laid upon the table. It is dated June 22, and it asks for information from the Governor- General. In India they assumed this unfortunate Rajah to be guilty of mis demeanour, because his troops had re volted, and the noble Lord in his despatch said, as I think very sensibly, 'If we cannot keep our own troops, what argument is it for overturning the independence of the territory of Dhar, seeing that the Rajah himself has been faithful towards us, but his troops have rebelled?' The noble Lord asked for further information. In the preceding April the Ranee, the mother or step mother of the Rajah, a mere boy of thirteen, sent two memorials to the Governor-General, one by post, and the other through the local British officer, remonstrating against the annexation, and proving, as far as she could, that the Rajah had not been guilty of any wrong against us. This memorial was not acknowledged until August, when the Secretary for the Government of India desired the Ranee to forward the memorial through the Governor-Gene ral's agent in Central India. In April these papers were laid upon the table of the House with one exception. The Ranee's memorial was not included in those papers. Now, when those papers were laid before the House, why was not that memorial, relating to the annexed terri tory, sent home and printed with the other papers, so that hon. Members of this House might have read it? The letter of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) was dated the 22nd of June, 1858, and to this hour it has never been answered. The noble Lord's despatch disallowed the annexation ; it condemned it, and asked for information. From the date of that despatch to this present 1st of August, 1859, there has not come any official information from the Governor- General as to what he has done, or any answer to the noble Lord's despatch, although sixteen months have elapsed. I say it is not fitting that the Secretary of State for India should be treated with utter disregard, if not with some thing like contempt, by any great satrap who happens to be sent out to govern • any of the provinces of this country. This very case shows, that in the midst of the terrible hurricane of the mutiny, the thirst for annexation was unslaked. At the very moment, or just before, that the Queen issued her gracious Proclamation here, the Government in India annexed the territory of this Rajah, a boy of thirteen years of age, manifesting at the same time an utter disregard of the Government at home and the just sentiments, if they could have been ascertained, of the whole body of the people of this country. And this must be so as long as you have a Government like that of Cal cutta. Procrastination is its very nature. 4-2 52 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST I, The noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley) did an excellent thing. He did honour to himself by appointing a man of a new sort as Governor of Madras. I have not much acquaint ance with Sir C. Trevelyan, but I be lieve him to be a veiy intelligent man and very earnest for the good of India. But he finds that at Madras he is like a man who is manacled, as all the Gover nors are. He is able to do almost no thing. But he has a spirit above being the passive instrument for doing nothing in the hands of the Governor- General, and he has been disposed to make several changes which have looked ex ceedingly heterodox to those who are connected with the old Government of India, and which have shocked the nerves of the fifteen old gentlemen who meet in Leadenhall-street, and their brethren in India. I find that among the changes endeavoured to be effected by Sir C7 Trevelyan, the following are enumerated: — He has endeavoured to conciliate the Natives by abolishing certain ceremonial distinctions which were supposed to degrade them when visiting the Government House ; he has shown that personal courtesy to them which appears to be too much neglected in India ; he has conspicuously reward ed those who have rendered services to the State ; he has made one of the Na tives his aide-de-camp; he has endea voured to improve the land tenure, to effect a settlement of the Enam, and to abolish the impress of cattle and carts. He has also abolished three- fourths, or perhaps more, of the paper work of the public servants. He also began the great task of judicial reform, than which none is more urgently press ing. But what is said of Sir C. Tre velyan for instituting these reforms? He has raised a. hornets' nest about him. Those who surround the Gover nor-General at Calcutta say, ' We might as well have the Governors of the Pre sidencies independent, if they are to do as they like without consulting the Go vernor-General as has been done in past times.' The Friend of India is a journal not particularly scrupulous in supporting the Calcutta Government, but it has a horror of any Government of India except that of the Governor- General and the few individuals who surround him. A writer in the Friend of India says : — 'Sir C. Trevelyan relies doubtless on Lord Stanley, and we do not dream of denying that the .Secretary of State has provocation enough to excuse the unusual course he seems obliged to pursue. To send a reform to Calcutta is, at present, simply to lay it aside. It will probably not even be answered for two years, cer tainly not carried in five. Even when sanctioned, it will have to pass through a crucible through which no plan can escape entire. That weary waiting for Calcutta, of which all men, from Lord Stanley to the people of Singapore, now bitterly com plain, may well tempt the Secretary to carry on his plans by the first mode offered to his hand.' Here are only a dozen lines from a long article, and there are other articles in the same paper to the same purport. I think, then, that I am justified in con demning any Secretary for India who contents himself with giving us the figures necessary to show the state of the finances, which any clerk in the office could have done, and abstains from going into the questions of the government of India and that policy upon which alone you can base any solid hope of an improvement in the condition of that country. There is another point I would men- j tion. The Governor- General of India goes out knowing little or nothing of India. I know exactly what he does when he is appointed. He shuts him self up to study the first volumes of Mr. Mill's History of India, and he reads through this laborious work without nearly so much effect in making him a good Governor-General as a man might ignorantly suppose. He goes to India, a country of twenty nations, speaking twenty languages. He knows none of those nations, and he has not a glimmer 1859- INDIA. IV. 53 of the grammar and pronunciation or meaning of those languages. He is surrounded by half-a-dozen or a dozen gentlemen who have been from fifteen to forty years in that country, and who have scrambled from the moderate but sure allowance with which they began in the Service to the positions they now occupy. He knows nothing of the country or the people, and they are really unknown to the Government of India. To this hour the present Gover nor-General has not travelled through any considerable portion of the territory of India. If he did, he would have to pay an increased insurance upon his life for travelling through a country in which there are very few roads and no bridges at all. Observe the position, then, in which the Governor-General is placed. He is surrounded by an official circle, he breathes an official air, and everything is dim or dark beyond it. You lay duties upon him which are utterly beyond the mental or bodily strength of any man who ever existed, and which he cannot therefore ade quately perform. Turning from the Governor-General to the Civil Service, see how short the period is in which your servants in that country remain in any particular office. You are constantly criticising the bad customs of the United States, where every postmaster and many other officers lose their situations, and where others are appointed whenever a new President is elected. You never make blunders like the United States, and you will therefore be surprised at a statement given in evidence by Mr. Underhill, the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society. He says that in certain dis tricts in Bengal there are three or four Englishmen to 1,000,000 inhabitants, and that the magistrates are perpetu ally moving about. I have here the names of several gentlemen cited. _ Mr. Henry Lushington went to India in 1821, and remained till 1842. During these twenty-one years he filled twenty- one different offices ; he went to Europe twice, being absent from India not less than four and a quarter years. Upon an average, therefore, he held his twenty- one offices not more than nine months each. Mr. J. P. Grant was Governor of Bengal. That was so good a place that he remained stationary in it. But he went to India in 1828 and remained there until 1841. In those thirteen years he held twenty-four different situ ations, being an average of less than six months for each. Mr. Charles Grant — and I may say that Grant is a name which for three or four genera tions has been found everywhere in India, — he was in India from 1829 to 1842, and in those thirteen years he filled seventeen offices, being an average of only eight months for each office. Mr. Halliday, Governor of Bengal, went to India in 1825, and remained until 1843. In those eighteen years he held twenty-one offices, and he did not be come stationary until he was accredited to the lucrative and great office of Go vernor of Bengal. I think these facts show that there is something in the arrangements of the Indian Government which makes it no Government at all, except for the pur pose of raising money and spending taxes. It is no Government for watching over the people and conferring upon, them those blessings which we try to silence our consciences by believing the British Government is established in India to promote. What can a Go vernor-General do with such a Council, and with servants who are ever changing in all the departments ? I am not stating my own opinion, but what is proved by the blue-books. Mr. Halliday stated that the police of Bengal were more feared than the thieves anddacoits. But how is this Government, so occu pied and so embarrassed, to be expected to put the police on a satisfactory foot ing? With regard to justice, I might appeal to any gentleman who has been in India whether, for the most part, the Judges in the Company's Courts are not without training, and if they are without training, whether they will not probably be without law. The delay is 54 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST I, something of which we can have no conception, even with our experience of the Court of Chancery in this country. Perjury and wrong are universal where- ever the Courts of the Company's Ser vice have been established in India. Of their taxation we hear enough to-night. It is clumsy and unscientific. In their finance there is such confusion that the Government proposes to send out some body, not to raise revenue, not to spend it, but somebody who will be able to tell you how it is raised and spent, for that is what you want to know. They have no system of book-keeping what ever. The Secretary of State gives us a statement of revenue and expenditure up to the 30th of April, 1858, sixteen months back, and even for the year pre ceding he can only furnish what he calls an ' estimate.' Would any other Legis lative Assembly in the whole world, except this, tolerate such a state of things ? I did try myself several years ago to get a statement of the accounts up to a later period ; but I found it was of no use. They ought to be brought up to a later period ; the thing is quite within the range of possibility; it is simply not done because there is no proper system of book-keeping, and no one responsible for not doing it. You have no Government in India; you have no financial statement; you have no system of book-keeping; no responsibility; and everything goes to confusion and ruin because there is such a Government, or no Government, and the English House of Commons has not taken the pains to reform these things. The Secretary of State to-night points to the increase in the English trade. In that trade I am myself inter ested, and I am delighted to see that increase; but it should be borne in mind that just now it is not a natural increase, and therefore not certain to be permanent. If you are spending so many millions in railroads and in carry ing on war — that is, 22,000,000/. for your armaments in India instead of 12,000,000/. — is not that likely to make a great difference in your power to import more largely from this country? Do not we know that when the Go vernment of the day was pouring English treasure into the Crimea the trade with the Levant was most materially in creased ? And, therefore, I say it will be a delusion for the right hon. Gentle man to expect that the extraordinary increase which has taken place within the last three years will go on in future in the same proportion. Now, the point which I wish to bring before the Committee and the Govern ment is this, because it is on this that I rely mainly — I think I may say almost entirely — for any improvement in the future of India. It would be impertinent to take up the time of the Committee by merely cavilling at: what other people have said, and pointing out their errors and blunders, if I had no hope of being able to suggest any improvement in the existing state of things. I believe a great improvement may be made, and by a gradual progress that will dislocate nothing. I dare say it may disappoint some individuals, but where it will dis appoint one man in India it will please a thousand. What you want is to de centralize your Government. I hold it to be manifestly impossible to govern 150,000,000 of persons, composing twenty different nations, speaking as many different languages, by a man who knows nothing of India, assisted by half-a-dozen councillors beldnging to a privileged order, many of whom have had very little experience in India, except within narrow limits, and whose experience never involved the consider ation and settlement of great questions of statesmanship. If you could have an independent Government in India for every 20,000,000 of its people, I do not hesitate to say, though we are so many thousand miles away, that there are Englishmen who, settling down among those 20,000,000 of people, would be able to conduct the Government of that particular province on conditions wholly different and immeasurably better than anything in the way of administration which we have ever seen in India. 1859- INDIA. IV. 55 If I were Secretary of State for India, — but as I am not, I will recom mend the right hon. Gentleman to do that which I would do myself, or I would not hold his office for one month; because, to hold office and come before the House Session after Session with a gloomy statement, and with no kind of case to show that you are doing any thing for India, or that you are justified in holding possession of it at all, is nothing but to receive a salary and to hold a dignity without any adequate notion of the high responsibility attach ing to them. I am not blaming the right hon. Gentleman in particular ; he is only doing what all his predecessors before him have done. There has been no real improvement since I have sat in Parliament in the government of India, and I believe the BUI of last year is not one whit better for purposes of admin istration than any that has gone before. But I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman, whether it would not be a good thing to bring in a Bill to extend and define the powers of the Governors of the various Presidencies in India ? I do not ask the right hon. Gentleman to turn out the fifteen gentlemen who assist him in Leadenhall-street to vege tate on their pensions, but I ask him to go to India and to take the Presidency of Madras for an instance. Let arrange ments be made by which that Presidency shall be in a position to correspond di rectly with him in this countiy, and let every one connected with that Govern ment of Madras feel that, with regard to the interests and the people of that Presidency, they will be responsible for their protection. At present there is no sort of tie between the governors and the governed. Why is it that we should not do for Madras what has been done for the Island of Ceylon? I am not about to set up the Council of Ceylon as a model institution — it is far from that ; but I will tell you what it is, and you will see that it would not be a diffi cult thing to make the change I pro pose. The other day I asked a gentle man holding an office in the Govern ment, and who had lived some years in Ceylon, what was the state of the Council ? He said it was composed of sixteen members, of whom six were non-official and independent, and the Governor had always a majority. He added that at the present moment in that Council there was one gentleman, a pure Cingalese by birth and blood, another a Brahmin, another a half-caste, whose father was a Dutchman and whose mother was a Native, and three others who were either English mer chants or planters. The Council has not much prestige, and therefore it is not easy to induce merchants in the interior to be members and to under take its moderate duties ; but the result is that this Cingalese, this Brahmin, this half-caste, and these three English men, although they cannot out-vote Sir H. Ward, the Governor, are able to discuss questions of public interest in the eye and the ear of the public, and to tell what the independent population want, and so to form a representation of public opinion in the Council, which I will undertake to say, although so inefficient, is yet of high importance in the satisfactory government of that island. Why is it that we can have nothing like this in the Councils of Madras or Bombay? It would be an easy thing to do, and I believe that an Act of Parliament which would do it would lay the foundation of the greatest reform that has yet taken place in India. At present all the Governors are in fetters ; and I see that blame has been imputed to Sir Charles Trevelyan for endeavouring to break through those fetters. No doubt an attempt will be made to have him recalled, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, while he moderates the ardour of the Governor so far as to prevent a rebellion among the civilians, will support him honestly and faithfully in all those changes which the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do are essential to the improve ment of the government of that country. There is yet another question, and that is, what is to be done with regard 56 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST I, to the people of India on the subject of education, and especially with reference to the matter of religious instruction? I beg the right hon. Gentleman to be cautious how he takes the advice of any gentleman in this country, who may ask him to make changes in the estab lished order of things there by appear ing in the slightest degree to attempt to overthrow the caste and religion of the Natives of India. I have here an extract from a letter written by a gen tleman who was present at one of the ceremonies of reading the Queen's Proclamation in November last. He says : — ' Not less than 7,000 Natives of all ranks and conditions and religions flocked to the esplanade at Tellicherry, where there was no show but the parading of a company of Sepoys, who fired a feu dejoie very badly, to hear the Queen's Proclama tion read. AH who heard, all who heard not, manifested the deepest interest in it. The pledged inviolability of their religion and their lands spread like wildfire through the crowd, and was soon in every man's mouth. Their satisfaction was unbounded. ... I mentioned that I went to Tellicherry to hear the Queen's Proclamation read. We have since had it read here (Anjarakandy). You will see an account of what took place on the occasion in the accompanying copy of an official report I addressed to the assistant-magistrate. What I have described understates the feeling manifested by the people. They were all eyes and ears, listen ing breathlessly to what was being read. You will observe that convening them for any public purpose whatever, except here, was a thing unknown, and would have been a thing scouted under the Company's Government. Here I always assemble them, communicate everything they ought to know and hear, and talk it over with them. But a Queen's Proclamation is not an every-day affair, so they came in crowds, and I will venture to say that there is not another place in the Queen's India where it was so clearly explained to them or so thoroughly understood. But the impartial toleration of their religion and caste was the be-all and end-all of their comments, praise, and individual satisfaction. One Mafitta said, " They had had scores of proclamations upon every conceivable sub ject, but never one so wise and sensible as this.'" The East India Company was a won derful Company for writing despatches. There was nothing so Christian as then- doctrine, nothing so unchristian as their conduct. That Proclamation has in it the basis of all you should aim at in future in India — a regard to the sacred- ness of their property, and the sacred- ness of their religion, and an extension to them of as regular and full justice as is shown to your own countrymen. Depend upon it these Natives of India can comprehend this as well as we comprehend it ; and, if you treat them as we are treated, and as they ought to be treated, you will not require 400,000 men to help you to govern a people who are notoriously among the most industrious and most peaceable to be found on the face of the earth. There has lately been an act done by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) to which 1 must allude. Why he did it I do not know. I am sure the noble Lord ¦ did not mean to do an act of injustice— though very great injustice has been done. A question was put the other night about a Native of India who had come to this country to qualify himself for entering into competition for em ployment in the Civil Service of his countiy. I have seen that young gen tleman, and conversed with him; and when I state his case, it will be seen whether he has been treated well or wisely, though the regulation under which he has suffered may have been made without any reference to him in dividually. He arrived in this country in June, 1856, and remained preparing himself for competition for two years and a-half till December, 1858, when a new regulation came out, which made twenty-two instead of twenty- three years of age the period for entering the Civil Service. He might have been ready 1859. INDIA. IV. 57 for competition in July, i860, but he could not be ready in July, 1859. Under these circumstances he would be past the age of twenty-two before he could be able to present himself for examina tion. The consequence is, that he has been obliged to turn himself to another channel for employment. His father is an assistant-builder in the Government dockyard of Bombay, and has been in England. There was great interest ex cited among the Natives when the young man left India to come to England, and there is great disappointment among his friends at the result. He has been laughed at for trusting the Government, and it is said that while Government go on changing their regulations in this way no faith can be put in them. Now this is the first case of this kind that has happened. This young gentleman (or his father) has expended 1,500/. in coming here and in endeavouring to get the best education, solely with a view to be suited for the Civil Service. If he had entered into that Civil Service a great thing would have been accom plished. The result would have been that the House and the Secretary for India would have seen that it was very unjust, while the son of any one here could pursue his studies at home and enter into competition for the Civil Service, that the sons of the Natives of India who wish to enter into the service of their own country must come thou sands of miles at great expense, and live apart from their families for years, before they are able to accomplish their object, and the result must have been that you would have established in some city in India the same mode of examina tion that you have established here. You must have been led to do that which would have enabled young men in India to offer themselves for the Civil Service of their countiy on as favourable terms as could be done in England. I am sure the noble Lord never had the slightest idea of the regu lation having reference to this young man, or of injuring him ; yet it has been done, and what has occurred leads to the conclusion that either somebody very deep in these matters has been at the bottom of this change, or that some combination of unfortunate cir cumstances has been at work, by which that which we have all so much at heart has been retarded. If the noble Lord had struck out this regulation, or made a new one, by which this young man could have had a chance of going home as a. servant of the Civil Service, the fact would have been worth many regiments of soldiers in India. In speaking on this subject I have nothing new to offer to the attention of the House. I have propounded the very same theories and remedies years ago. They are not my remedies and theories. I am not the inventor of local government for India; but the more 1 have considered the subject — the more I have discussed it with the Members of this House and with gentlemen con nected with India — the more I am con vinced that you will not make a single step towards the improvement of India unless you change your whole system of government — unless you give to each Presidency a government with more in dependent powers than are now pos sessed by it. What would be thought if the whole of Europe was under one governor, who knew only the language of the Feejee Islands, and that his sub ordinates were like himself, only more intelligent than the inhabitants of the Feejee Islands are supposed to be ? You set a governor over 150,000,000 of human beings, in a climate where the European cannot do the work he has to do so well as here, where neither the moral nor physical strength of the individual is equal to what it is at home, ¦ — and you do not even always fumish the most powerful men for the office ; — you seem to think that the atmosphere will be always calm and the sea always smooth. And so the government of India goes on ; there are promises with out number of beneficial changes, but we never hear that India is much better or worse than before. Now, that is not the way to do justice to a great SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. empire like India. If there had been a better government in India, the late disturbances among your own troops would not have happened ; and I own I tremble when I reflect that every post may bring us, in the present temper of the European troops in India, some dire intelligence of acts which they may have committed, because they may think that this is a convenient opportunity for pressing some great claim of their own. I begthe Committee to consider this matter, notwithstanding that the right hon. Gentleman is not disposed to take a gloomy view of the state of India. Look at your responsibilities. India is ruled by Englishmen, but remember that in that unfortunate country you have destroyed every form of govern ment but your own ; that you have cast the thrones of the Natives to the ground. Princely families, once the rulers of India, are now either houseless wanderers in the land they once called their own, or are pensioners on the bounty of those strangers by whom their fortunes have been overthrown. They who were noble and gentle for ages are now merged in the common mass of the people. All over those vast regions there are countless millions, helpless and defenceless, deprived of their natural leaders and their ancient chiefs, looking with only some small ray of hope to that omnipresent and irre sistible Power by which they have been subjected. I appeal to you on behalf of that people. I have besought your mercy and your justice for many a year past ; and if I speak to you earnestly now, it is because the object for which I plead is dear to my heart. Is it not possible to touch a chord in the hearts of Englishmen, to raise them to a sense of the miseries inflicted on that unhappy country by the crimes and the blunders of our rulers here ? If you have steeled your hearts against the Natives, if no thing can stir you to sympathy with their miseries, at least have pity upon your own countrymen. Rely upon it the state of things which now exists in India must, before long, become most serious. I hope that you will not show to the world that, although your fathers conquered the country, you have not the ability to govern it. You had better disencumber yourselves of the fatal gift of empire than that the present genera tion should be punished for the sins of the past. I speak in condemnatory language, because I believe it to be deserved. I hope that no future his torian will have to say that the arms of England in India were irresistible, and that an ancient empire fell before their victorious progress, — yet that finally India was avenged, because the power of her conqueror was broken by the intolerable burdens and evils which she cast upon her victim, and that this wrong was accomplished by a waste of human life and a waste of wealth which England, with all her power, was un able to bear. INDIA. v. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 19, 1861. From Hansard. [Mr. Dunlop brought forward a motion to inquire into the discrepancies between certain sets of documents, relating to the Affghan war of 1837-8. It appeared that some passages in the despatches of Sir Alexander Burnes had been mutilated, in order to make it appear that he advised a policy which he really condemned. Mr. Dunlop moved for a Committee to inquire into this alleged mutilation of despatches presented to the House. The motion was negatived.] When the noble Lord rose, I ob served, from his countenance and from his language, that he seemed to be suffering from the passion of anger. [Viscount Palmerston: 'Not much.'] ' Not much,' the noble Lord says. I admit that in the course of his speech he calmed down ; but he was so far led from what I think was a fair course as to charge the hon. and learned Gentle man who introduced this Motion with making a violent and vituperative speech, and he spoke of ' that voca bulary of abuse of which the hon. Gentleman appeared to be master.' Now, I will undertake to say that I am only speaking the opinion of every Gentleman in the House who heard the speech which introduced this ques tion, when I say that there has rarely been delivered here on any subject a speech more strictly logical, more judi cially calm, and more admirable than that which we have heard to-night from the hon. and learned Member for Greenock. But the fact is the noble Lord felt himself hit. The noble Lord is on his trial in this case ; and on that account I expect that at the conclusion of the debate he will not feel himself at liberty to object to the appointment of this Committee. After a few sentences the noble Lord touched upon the case of Sir Alexander Bumes, and he made a very faint denial of the misrepresentations which are charged against the Government of that day in the case of that gentleman. But he went on to say that, after all, these things were of no importance; that what was in, or what was left out, was unimportant. But I should like to ask the noble Lord what was the object of the minute and ingenious, and I will say unmatched care which was taken in mutilating the despatches of a gentle man whose opinions were of no impor tance and whose writings could not make the slightest difference either to the question or to the opinions of any person concerned? The noble Lord, too, has stooped to conduct which, if I were not in this House, I might describe in language which I could not possibly use here without being told that I was transgressing the line usually observed in discussions in this assembly. The noble Lord has stooped so low as to 6o SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I9, heap insult, throughout the whole of his speech, upon the memory of a man who died in the execution of what he believed to be his public duty — a duty which was thrust upon him by the mad and obstinate policy of the noble Lord ; and whilst his blood cries to Heaven against that policy, the noble Lord, during a three-quarters of an hour's speech in this House, has scarcely ceased to heap insult on his memory. What the noble Lord told us through out his speech was that Sir Alexander Burnes was a man of the greatest sim plicity of character. I could not, how ever complimentary I were disposed to be, retort that upon the noble Lord. He says that Sir Alexander Burnes— of whom he spoke throughout in the most contemptuous manner — an eminent po litical agent at the Court of Dost Ma- hommed, was beguiled by the treachery of that Asiatic ruler ; that he took every thing for truth which he heard, and that, in point of fact, he was utterly unfit for the position which he held at Cabul. But although the noble Lord had these despatches before him, and knew all the feelings of Sir Alexander Burnes, he still continued Sir Alexander Burnes there. He was there two years after these despatches were written, in that most perilous year when not only him self but the whole army — subjects of the Queen — fell victims to the policy of the noble Lord. Now, I must tell the noble Lord what my hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Greenock, did not discuss, and what the Committee is. not to do — because every Member who heard the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Greenock, and those who listened to the speech of the noble Lord, must have seen that from the first the noble Lord evaded the whole question. He endeavoured to lead the House to believe that my hon. and learned Friend was going into some antiquarian re searches about the policy of the English or the Indian Government twenty years ago, and that it was proposed to have a Committee to dig up all the particulars of our supposed peril from the designs of Russia at that time. But the fact is that my hon. and learned Friend had no such intention; and there was no man in the House more cognizant of that fact than the noble Lord when he inge niously endeavoured to convey a con trary impression to the House. It is not proposed to go into the po licy of the war. And there is another question that it is not proposed to go into. It is not proposed to inquire whether Sir Alexander Burnes or Lord Auckland was Governor-General. We know that Lord Auckland was Governor-General ; but we know that a Governor-General who may be many hundreds, or in India, perhaps, 2,000 miles away from the place where particular events are transpiring, must rely to a considerable extent on the information he receives from the political agent who is on the spot. If this be so> clearly what Sir Alexander Bumes thought, and what he said, and what he wrote, is of some importance. At least, if the House of Commons has any evidence placed before it, the noble Lord will agree that in a great question like this — I am not speaking of the pre sent time, but of the time when these events happened — it is of first-rate im portance that the House should have evidence not on one side only, but on both sides. There is another thing we do not propose to inquire into, and that is the policy of Russia at that time. I cannot very well understand the course which the noble Lord has taken on this point; for I find that about twelve months after the writing of these very despatches, the mutilation of which is now complained of, the noble Lord made a reply to the Russian Minister who had declared that there was no thing whatever hostile to England in the instructions which were furnished to Vicovich. He says — ' There has not existed the smallest de sign hostile to the English Government, , nor the smallest idea of endangering the tranquillity of the British possessions in India.'The noble Lord, in reply to that, on the i86i. INDIA. V. 6 1 20th December, 1838, just a year after the writing of these despatches by Sir Alexander Burnes, said : — 'Her Majesty's Government accept as entirely satisfactory the declaration of the Russian Government that it does not har bour any designs hostile to the interests of Great Britain in India.' I may leave that question there, be cause I can assure the noble Lord that my hon. and learned Friend has not the smallest intention — I judge so, at least, from his speech — of bringing anybody before the Committee to attack or de fend the policy of the Government in the war which then unhappily took place. Nor do I suppose it is intended to arraign anybody for a policy that sacrificed at least 20,000 human lives — 20,000 lives of the subjects of the Queen of England. Nor is it intended to inquire how far the loss of more than 15,000,000/. sterling by that po licy has affected for all future time the finances and the circumstances of the Government of India. These are crimes — the whole of that policy is a crime — of a nature never to be answer ed for. No man can accurately mea sure it. No Committee of this House could adequately punish those who were the perpetrators of it. No, Sir, my hon. and learned Friend has not the slightest idea of going back twenty years for the purpose of bringing the noble Lord, or any one else who may be guilty of that great crime, to the bar of public opinion by this Committee. But it is worth while that the House should know whether the Government in whom it placed confidence at that time, and in whom the Queen placed confidence — whether that Government was worthy of their confidence, and whether any members of the Govern ment of that day are members of the Government at this day. It is worth while knowing whether there was and is a man in high position in the Go vernment here or in India who had so low a sense of honour and of right that he could offer to this House mutilated, false, forged despatches and opinions of a public servant, who lost his life in the public service. Conceive any man at this moment in India engaged, as many have been during the last three years, in perilous services — conceive that any man should know that to-morrow, or next week, or any time this year, he may lay his bones in that distant land, and that six months afterwards there may be laid on the table of this House by the noble Lord at the head of the Government, or by the Secretary of State for India, letters or despatches of his from which passages have been cut out, and into which passages have been inserted, in which words have been so twisted as wholly to divert and dis tort his meaning, and to give to him a meaning, it may be, utterly the contrary to that which his original despatch in tended to convey. I cannot conceive any anticipation more painful or more bitter, more likely to eat into the heart of any man engaged in the service of his country in a distant land. It is admitted, and the noble Lord has not flatly denied it — he cannot deny it — he knows it as well as the hon. and learned member for Greenock — he knows it as well as the very man whose hand did the evil — he knows there have been garbling, mutilation, practically and essentially falsehood and forgery, in these despatches which have been laid before the House. Why was it refused to give the original despatches when they were asked for in 1842 by the hon. Member for Inverness-shire (Mr. H. Baillie), and when they were asked for at a later period by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield)? Why was it that the originals were so consistently withheld ? That they have been given now, I suppose is because those who were guilty of the outrage on the faith of Parliament thought, as twenty years had elapsed, that nobody would give himself the trouble to go into the question, and that no man would be so earnest as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock in bringing the question before the notice of Parliament. 62 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 19, My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) informs me that it was the noble Lord the Mem ber for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley) who consented to the production of the original despatches when he was in office. I was not aware of that fact; but I am free here to tender him my thanks for the course which he took. I am sure he is the last man whom any one would suspect of being mixed up in any transaction of this kind, except with a view to give the House and the country full information with regard to it. I say, then, avoiding all the long speech of the noble Lord, that the object of the Committee is to find out who did this evil thing — who placed upon the table of the House informa tion which was knowingly false, and despatches that were actually forged — because if you add to or detract from, or so change a coin, or note, or deed, as to make any of them bear a mean ing contrary to its original and intended meaning, of course you are guilty of such an act as I have described, and that is precisely what somebody has done in the despatches which we are now discussing. I say an odious offence has been committed against the House, and against the truth; and what we want to know is, who did it ? Now, will the noble Lord be candid enough — he does not think there is any thing wrong — he says there is not much — it is very trifling — that Sir Alexander Bumes's opinions are not worth much — supposing it to be so — for the sake of argument, let me grant it ; but if it is a matter of no importance, will the noble Lord be so candid as to tell us who did it? When Lord Broughton was examined before the Official Salaries Committee some years ago, he, as the noble Lord is aware, said that he took upon himself as President of the Board of Control at the time the entire re sponsibility of the Affghan war. The noble Lord now at the head of the Government was then a member of the India Board, and so I believe was the noble Lord the Member for the City of London. But the noble Lord at the head of the Government was also Secre tary for Foreign Affairs. Now, I do not think I am wrong in supposing that this question lies between the noble Lord the Prime Minister and Lord Broughton, once a Member of this House. This thing was not done by some subordinate who cannot be found out. My hon. and learned Friend says it has been done with marvellous care, and even with so much ability that it must have been done by a man of genius. Of course there are men of genius in very objectionable walks of life ; but we know that the noble Lord at the head of the Government is a man of genius ; if he had not been, he would not have sat on that bench for the last fifty years. And we know that Lord Broughton is a man of many and varied accomplishments. And once more I ask the noble Lord to tell us who did it? He knows who did it. Was it his own right-hand, or was it Lord Broughton's right-hand, or was it some clever secre tary in the Foreign Office or in the India Office who did this work ? I say the House has a right to know. We want to know that. We want to drag the delinquent before the public. This we want to know, because we wish to deter other Ministers from committing the like offence ; and we want to know it for that which most of all is neces sary — to vindicate the character and honour of Parliament. Nothing can sink Parliament to a lower state of degradation and baseness than that it should permit Ministers of the Crown to lay upon the table, upon questions involving the sacrifice of 20,000,000/. of money and 20,000 lives, documents which are not true — which slander our public servants, and which slander them most basely when they are dead and are not here to answer. I do not believe that the Gentlemen of England in this House — upon that side of the House or upon this — will ever consent to sit down with a case proved so clearly as this is without directing the omnipotent power and eye i86i. INDIA. V. 63 of Parliament into the matter. I say, seeing the charge, seeing that the noble Lord was at the head of the Foreign Office at the time, that the policy of the Affghan war was always considered to be his, that the responsibility of this act must, rest between him and Lord Broughton, — I should not like to hold the opinion, and I do not hold the opinion, that the noble Lord will object to a Committee to inquire into a matter in which he is himself so directly con cerned. >S*J*£'3«fc23, and tiy if it be not possible to escape from it ? [An hon. Member : ' Run away?'] No, not by running away, though there are many circumstances in which brave men run away ; and you may get into difficulty on this Canadian question, which may make you look back and wish that you had run away a good time ago. I object to this vote on a ground which, I believe, has not been raised by any Member in the present discussion. I am not going to say that the expenditure of fifty thousand pounds is a matter of great consequence to this country, that the expenditure of this money in the proposed way will be taken as a menace by the United States. I do not think that this can be fairly said ; for whether building fortifications at Quebec be useless or not, such a proceeding is not likely to enable the Canadians to overrun the State of New York. The United States, I think, will have no right to complain of this ex penditure. The utmost it can do will be to show them that some persons, and perhaps the Government of this country, have some little distrust of them, and so far it may do injury. I complain of the expenditure and the policy announced by the Colonial Se cretary, on a ground which I thought ought to have been urged by the noble Lord the Member for Wick, who is a sort of half-Canadian. He made a speech which I listened to with great pleasure, and told the House what some of us, perhaps, did not know before; but if I had been connected, as he is, with Canada, I would have addressed the House from a Canadian point of view. What is it that the Member for Oxford says? He states, in reference to the expenditure for the proposed fortifications, that, though a portion of the expenditure is to be borne by us, the main portion is to be borne by Canada ; but I venture to tell him, that, if there shall be any occasion to defend Canada at all, it will not arise from anything Canada does, but from what England does; and therefore I protest against the doctrine that the Cabinet in London may get into difficulties, and ultimately into war, with the Cabinet at Washington ; thaL because Canada lies adjacent to the United States, and may consequently become a great battle field, this United Kingdom has a right to call on Canada for the main portion of that expenditure. Who has asked you to spend fifty thousand pounds, and the hundreds- of thousands which may be supposed to follow, but which perhaps Parliament may be indisposed hereafter to grant? What is the pro portion which Canada is to bear? If we are to spend two hundred thousand pounds at Quebec, is Canada to spend four hundred thousand pounds at Mont real? If Canada is to spend double whatever we may spend, is it not obvious that every Canadian will ask himself — what is the advantage of the connection between Canada and Eng land ? Every Canadian knows perfectly well, and nobody better than the noble Lord the Member for Wick, that there is no more prospect of a war between Canada and the United States alone, than be tween the Empire of France and the Isle of Man. If that is so, why should the Canadians be taxed beyond all rea son, as the Colonial Secretary proposes to tax them, for a policy not Canadian, and for a calamity which, if ever it occurs, must occur from some trans actions between England and the United States ? There are Gentlemen here who know a good deal of Canada, and I see behind me one who knows perfectly well what is the condition of the Canadian finances. We complain that Canada levies higher duties on British manufac tures than the United States did before the present war, and much higher than France does. But when we complain to Canada of this, and say it is very unpleasant usage from a part of our empire, the Canadians reply that their expenditure is so much, and their debt, with the interest on it, so much, that they are obliged to levy these heavy duties. If the Canadian finances are in 1865. CANADA. II. 79 the unfortunate position described; if the credit of Canada is not very good in the market of this countiy ; if you see what are the difficulties of the Canadians during a period of peace ; consider what will be their difficulties if the doctrine of the Colonial Secretary be carried out, which is that whatever expenditure is necessary for the defence of Canada, though we bear a portion, the main part must be borne by Canada. We must then come to this inevitable conclusion. Every Canadian will say, ' We are close alongside of a great na tion ; our parent state is three thousand miles away; there are litigious, and there may be even warlike, people in both nations, and they may occasion the calamity of a great war ; we are peace able people, having no foreign politics, happily; we may be involved in war, and while the cities of Great Britain are not touched by a single shell, nor one of its fields ravaged, there is not a city or a village in this Canada in which we live which will not be liable to the ravages of war on the part of our power ful neighbour.' Therefore the Canadians will say, unless they are unlike all other Englishmen (who appear to have more sense the farther they go from their own countiy), that it would be better for Canada to be disentangled from the politics of England, and to assume the position of an independent state. I suspect from what has been stated by official Gentlemen in the present Government, and in previous Govern ments, that there is no objection to the independence of Canada whenever Ca nada may wish it. I have been, glad to hear those statements, because I think they mark an extraordinary progress in sound opinions in this countiy. I re collect the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Office on one occasion being very angry with me, he said I wished to make a great empire less ; but a great empire, territorially, may be lessened without its power and authority in the world being diminished. I believe if Canada now, by 1 friendly separation from this country, became an inde pendent state, choosing its own form of government — monarchical, if it liked a monarchy, or republican, if it preferred a republic— it would not be less friendly to England, and its tariff would not be more adverse to our manufactures than it is now. In the case of a war with America, Canada would then be a neu tral^ countiy ; and the population would be in a state of greater security. Not that I think there is any fear of war, but the Government admit that it may occur by their attempt to obtain money for these fortifications. I object, there fore, to this vote, not on that account, nor even because it causes some distrust, or may cause it, in the United .States ; but I object to it mainly because I think we are commencing a policy which we shall either have to abandon, because Canada will not submit to it, or else which will bring upon Canada a burden in the shape of fortification expenditure that will make her more and more dis satisfied with this country, and that will lead rapidly to her separation from us. I do not object to that separation in the least ; I believe it would be better for us and better for her. But I think that, of all the misfortunes which could happen between us and Canada, this would be the greatest, that her separa tion should take place after a period of irritation and estrangement, and that we should have on that continent to meet another element in some degree hostile to this countiy. I am sorry, Sir, that the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and his colleagues, have taken this course ; but it appears to me to be wonderfully like almost everything which the Government does. It is a Government apparently of two parts, the one part pulling one way and the other part pulling another, and the result generally is something which does not please anybody, or produce any good effect in any direction. They now propose a scheme which has just enough in it to create distrust and irritation, enough to make it in some degree in jurious, and they do not do enough to accomplish any of the objects for which 8o SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. according to their statements, the pro position is made. Somebody asked the other night whether the Administration was to rule, or the House of Commons. Well, I suspect from the course of the debates, that on this occasion the Ad ministration will be allowed to rule. We are accustomed to say that the Go vernment suggests a thing on its own responsibility, and therefore we will allow them to do it. But the fact is, that the Government knows no more ' of this matter than any other dozen gentlemen in this House. They are not a bit more competent to form an opinion upon it. They throw it down on the table, and ask us to discuss and vote it. I should be happy to find the House, disregarding all the intimations that war is likely, anxious not to urge Canada into incurring an expenditure which she will not bear, and which, if she will not bear, must end in one of two things — either in throwing the whole burden upon us, or in breaking up, perhaps suddenly and in anger, the connection between us and that colony, and in making our future relations with her most unsatisfactory. I do not place much reliance on the speech of the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, not because he cannot judge of the question just as well as I or any one of us can do, but because I notice that in matters of this kind Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) bench, whatever may have been -their animosities towards the Gen tlemen on this (the Treasury) bench on other questions, shake hands. They may tell you that they have no connection with the House over the way, but the fact is, their connection is most intimate. And if the right honourable Member for Buckinghamshire were now sitting on the Treasury bench, and the noble Viscount were sitting opposite to him, the noble Viscount, I have no doubt, would give him the very same support that he now receives from the right hon. Gentieman. This seems to me a question so plain, so much on the surface, appealing so much to our common sense, having in it such great issues for the future, that I am persuaded it is the duty of the House of Commons on this occasion to take the matter out of the hands of the exe cutive Government, and to determine that, with regard to the future policy of Canada, we will not ourselves expend the money of the English tax-payers, and not force upon the tax-payers of Canada a burden which, I am satisfied, they will not long continue to bear. — - very narrow ground on which to force a quarrel with the United States. As to Messrs. Slidell and Mason being or not being contra band, the General answers for. it, that, if Mr. Seward cannot convince Earl Russell that they bore that character, Earl Russell will be able to convince Mr. Seward that they did not. He pledges himself that, if this Government cordially agreed with that of the United States in establishing the immunity of neutrals from the oppressive right of search and seizure on suspicion, the Cabinet of Washington will not hesi tate to purchase so great a boon to peaceful trading-vessels. Now, then, before I sit down, let me ask you what is this people, about which so many men in England at this moment are writing, and speaking, and thinking, with harshness, I think with injustice, if not with great bitterness? Two centuries ago, multitudes of the people of this country found a refuge on the North American continent, es caping from the tyranny of the Stuarts and from the bigotry of Laud. Many noble spirits from our countiy made great experiments in favour of human freedom on that continent. Bancroft, the great historian of his own country, has said, in his own graphic and em phatic language, 'The history of the colonization of America is the history of the crimes of Europe.' From that time down to our own period, America has. admitted the wanderers from every clime. Since 1815, a time which many here remember, and which is within my lifetime, more than three millions of persons have emigrated from the Uni ted Kingdom to the United States. During the fifteen years from 1845 or 1846 to 1859 or i860 — a period so recent that we all remember the most trivial circumstances that have happened in that time — during those fifteen years i86i. AMERICA. I. 99 more than two million three hundred and twenty thousand persons left the shores of the United Kingdom as emigrants for the States of North America. At this very moment, then, there are millions in the United States who per sonally, or whose immediate parents, have at one time been citizens of this country. They found a home in the Far West ; they subdued the wilder ness; they met with plenty there, which was not afforded them in their native country ; and they have become a great people. There may be persons in England who are jealous of those States. There may be men who dislike democracy, and who hate a republic; there may be even those whose sym pathies warm towards the- slave oli garchy of the South. But of this I am certain, that only misrepresentation the most gross or calumny the most wicked can sever the tie which unites the great mass of the people of this countiy with their friends and hrethren beyond the Atlantic. Now, whether the Union will be restored or not, or the South achieve an unhonoured independence or not, I know not, and I predict not. But this I think I know — that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty millions of freemen in the North will be thirty millions, or even fifty millions — a popu lation equal to or exceeding that of this kingdom. When that time comes, I pray that it may not be said amongst them, that, in the darkest hour of their country's trials, England, the land of their fathers, looked on with icy cold ness and saw unmoved the perils and calamities of their children. As for me, I have but this to say : I am but one in this audience, and but one in the citizenship of this country; but if all other tongues are silent, mine shall speak for that policy which gives hope to the bondsmen of the South, and which tends to generous thoughts, and generous, words, and generous deeds, between the two great nations who speak the English language, and from their origin are alike entitled to the English name. AMERICA. n. THE WAR AND THE SUPPLY OF COTTON. BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 18, 1862. I am afraid there was a little excite ment during a part of my honourable Colleague's speech, which was hardly favourable to that impartial consider ation to which he appealed. He began by referring to a question — or, I might say, to two questions, for it was one great question in two parts, — which at this moment occupies the mind, and, I think, must afflict the heart of every thoughtful man in this country — the calamity which has fallen upon the county from which I come, and the strife which is astonishing the world on the other side of the Atlantic. I shall not enter into details with regard to that calamity, because you have had already, I believe, meetings in this town, many details have been pub lished, contributions of a generous cha racter have been made, and you are doing — and especially, if I am rightly informed, are your artisans doing — their duty with regard to the unfortunate condition of the population amongst which I live. But this I may state in a sentence, that the greatest, probably the most prosperous, manufacturing in dustry that this country or the world has ever seen, has been suddenly and unexpectedly stricken down, but by a blow which has not been unforeseen or unforetold. Nearly five hundred thou sand persons — men, women, and chil dren — at this moment are saved from the utmost extremes of famine, not a few of them from death, by the con tributions which they are receiving from all parts of the country. I will not attempt here an elaborate eulogy of the generosity of the givers, nor will I en deavour to paint the patience and the gratitude of those who suffer and re ceive ; but I believe the conduct of the country, with regard to this great mis fortune, is an honour to all classes and to every section of this people. Some have remarked that there is perfect order where there has been so much anxiety and suffering. I believe there is scarcely a thoughtful man in Lancashire who will not admit that one great cause of the patience and good con duct of the people, besides the fact that they know so much is being done for them, js to be found in the extensive information they possess, and which of late years, and now more than ever, has been communicated to them through the instrumentality of an untaxed press. Noble Lords who have recently spoken, official men, and public men, have taken upon them to tell the people of Lanca shire that nobody has done wrong, and that, in point of fact, if it had not been for a family quarrel in that dreadful Republic, everything would have gone on smoothly, and that nobody can be blamed for our present sufferings. Now, if you will allow me, I should DEC. l8, 1862. AMERICA. II. like to examine for a few minutes whether this be true. If you read the papers with regard to this question, you will find that, barring whatever chance there may be of our again soon receiving a supply of cotton from America, the hopes of the whole countiy are directed to India. Our Government of India is not one of to-day. It is a Govern ment that has lasted as long as the Government of the United States, and it has had far more insurrections and se cessions, not one of which, I suppose some in this meeting must regret, has been tolerated by our Government or recognised by France. Our Government in India has existed for a hundred years in some portion of the country where cotton is a staple produce of the land. But we have had under the name of a Government what I have always de scribed as a piratical joint-stock com pany, beginning with Lord Clive, and ending, as I now hope it has ended, with Lord Dalhousie. And under that Government I will undertake to' say that it was not in nature that you could have such improvement as should ever give you a fair supply of cotton. Up to the year 1814, the whole trade of India was a monopoly of the East India Company. They took everything there that went there; they brought everything back that came here; they did whatsoever they pleased in the ter ritories under their rule. I have here an extract from a report of a Member of Council in India, Mr. Richards, pub lished in the year 181 2. He reports to the Court of Directors, that the whole cotton produce of the district was taken, without leaving any portion of the avowed share of the Ryots, that is, the cultivators, at their own free disposal ; and he says that they are not suffered to know what they shall get for it until after it has been far removed from their reach and from the countiy by exporta tion coastwise to Bombay ; and he says further, that the Company's servants fixed the prices from ten to thirty per cent, under the general market rate in the districts that were not under the Company's rule. During the three years before the Company's monopoly was abolished, in 18 14, the whole cotton that we received from India (I quote from the brokers' returns from Liver pool), was only 17,000 bales; in the three years afterwards, owing, no doubt, partly to the great increase in price, we received 55 1,000 bales, during which same three years the United States only sent us 611,000. Thus you see that in 1817, 1818, and 1819, more than forty years ago, the quantity we received from India was close upon, and in the year 1818 it actually exceeded, that which we received from the United States. Well, now I come down to the year 1832, and I have then the report of another Member of Council, and beg every working man here, every man who is told that there is nobody to blame, to listen to one or two extracts from the report. Mr. Warden, Member of the Council, gave evidence in 1832 that the money-tax levied on Surat cotton was 56 rupees per candy, leaving the grower only 24 rupees, or rather less than |d. per pound. In 1846 there was so great a decay of the cotton trade of Western India, that a committee was appointed in Bombay, partly of Members of the Chamber of Commerce and partly of servants of the Government, and they made a report in which they stated that from every candy of cotton — a candy is 7 cwt. or 784 lbs. — costing 80 rupees, which is 160 shillings in Bombay, the Government had taken 48 rupees as land-tax and sea-duty, leaving only 32 rupees, or less than \d. per pound, to be divided among all parties, from the Bombay seller to the Surat grower. In 1847 I was in the House of Com mons, and I brought forward a pro position for a select committee to inquire into this whole question ; for in that year Lancashire was on the verge of the calamity that has now overtaken it ; cotton was very scarce, for hun dreds of the mills were working short time, and many were closed altogether. That committee reported that, in all the districts of Bombay and Madras SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. I 8, where eotton was cultivated, and gen erally over those agricultural regions, the people were in a condition of the most abject and degraded pauperism ; and I will ask you whether it is possible for a people in that condition to produce anything great, or anything good, or any thing constant, which the world requires? It is not to be wondered at that the quality of the cotton should be bad — so bad that it is illustrated by an anecdote which a very excellent man of the Methodist body told me the other day. He said that at a prayer-meeting, not more than a dozen miles from where I live, one of the ministers was earnest in supplication to the Supreme ; he de tailed, no doubt, a great many things which he thought they were in want of, and amongst the rest, a supply of cotton for the' famishing people in that district. When he prayed for cotton, some man with a keen sense of what he had suf fered, in response exclaimed, ' O Lord ! but not Surat.' Now, my argument is this, and my as sertion is this, that the growth of cotton in India, — the growth of an article which was native and common in India before America was discovered by Europeans, — that the growth of that article has been systematically injured, strangled, and destroyed by the stupid and wicked policy of the Indian Government. I saw, the other day, a letter from a gentleman as well acquainted with Indian affairs, perhaps, as any man in India, — a letter written to a member of the Madras Government, — in which he stated his firm opinion that, if it had not been for the Bombay Committee in 1846, and for my Committee in 1848, there would not have been any cotton sent from India at this moment to be worked up in Lancashire. Now, in 1846, the quantity of cotton coming from India had fallen to 94,000 bales. How has it increased since then? In 1859 it: nad- reached 509,000 bales; in i860, 562,000 bales ; and last year, owing to the ex traordinarily high price, it had reached 986,000 bales, and I suppose this year will be about the same as last year. I think, in justification of myself and of some of those with whom I have acted, I am entitled to ask your time for a few moments, to show you what has been not so much done as attempted to be done to improve this state of things ; and what has been the system atic opposition that we have had to contend with. In the year 1847, I moved for that committee, in a speech from which I shall read one short extract. I said that ' We ought not to forget that the whole of the cotton grown in America is produced by slave labour, and this, I think, all will admit, — that, no matter as to the period in which slavery may have existed, abo lished it will ultimately be, either by peaceable means or by violent means. Whether it comes to an end by peace able means or otherwise, there will in all probability be an interruption to the production of 'cotton, and the calamity which must in consequence fall upon a part of the American Union will be felt throughout the manufacturing districts of this country.' The committee was not refused; — Governments do not always refuse com mittees ; they do not much fear them on matters of this kind ; they put as many men on as the mover of the committee does, and sometimes more, and they often consider a committee, as my hon ourable Colleague will tell you, rather a convenient way of burying an un pleasant question, at least for another session. The committee sat during the session of 1848, and it made a report, from which I shall quote, not an extract, but the sense of an extract. The evi dence was very extensive, very com plete, and entirely condemnatory of the whole system of the Indian Govern ment with regard to the land and agri cultural produce, and one might have hoped that something would have arisen from it, and probably something has arisen from it, but so slowly that you have no fruit, — nothing on which you can calculate, even up to this hour. Well, in 1850, as nothing more was done, I thought it time to take another 1862. AMERICA. II. 103 step, and I gave notice of a motion for the appointment of a Royal Commission to go to India for the express purpose of ascertaining the truth of this matter. I moved, ' That a Royal Commission proceed to India to inquire into the obstacles which prevent the increased growth of cotton in India, and to re port upon any circumstance which may injuriously affect the economical and in dustrial condition of the native popu lation, being cultivators of the soil, within the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay.' Now I shall read you one extract from my speech on that occasion, which refers to this question of peril in Ame rica. I said, ' But there is another point, that, whilst the production of cotton in the United States results from slave labour, whether we approve of any particular mode of abolishing slavery in any country or not, we are all convinced that it will be impossible in any country, and most of all in America, to keep between two and three millions of the population permanently in a state of bondage. By whatever means that sys tem is to be abolished, whether by insurrection, — which I should deplore, — or by some great measure of justice from the Government, — one thing is certain, that the production of cotton must be interfered with for a consider able time after such an event has taken place ; and it may happen that the greatest measure of freedom that has ever been conceded may be a measure the consequence of which will inflict mischief upon the greatest industrial pursuit that engages the labour of the operative population of this country.' Now, it was not likely the Govern ment could pay much attention to this, for at that precise moment the Foreign Office— then presided over by Lord Pal merston — was engaged with an English fleet in the waters of Greece, in col lecting a bad debt for one Don Pacifico, a Jew, who made a fraudulent demand on the Greek Government for injuries said to have been committed upon him in Greece. Notwithstanding this, I called upon Lord John Russell, who was then the Prime Minister, and asked him whether he would grant the Commission I was going to move for. I will say this for him, he appeared to agree with me that it was a reasonable thing. I believe he saw the peril, and that my proposition was a proper one, but he said he wished he could communicate with Lord Dalhousie. But it was in the month of June, and he could not do that, and hear from him again before the close of the session. He told me that Sir John Hobhouse, then President of the India Board, was very much against it ; and I answered, ' Doubtless he is, because he speaks as the mouth piece of the East India Company, against whom I am bringing this inquiry.' Well, my proposition came before the House, and, as some of you may re collect, it was opposed by the President of the India Board, and the Commission was consequently not granted. I had seen Sir Robert Peel, — this was only ten days before his death, — I had seen Sir Robert Peel, acquainted as he was with Lancashire interests, and had en deavoured to enlist him in my support. He cordially and entirely approved of my motion, and he remained in the House during the whole of the time I was speaking; but when Sir John Hobhouse rose to resist the motion, and he found the Government would not consent to it, he then left his seat, and left the House. The night after, or two nights after, he met me in the lobby; and he said he thought it was but right he should explain why he left the House after the conversation he had held with me on this question before. He said he had hoped the Government would agree to the motion, but when he found they would not, his position was so delicate with regard to them and his own old party, that he was most anxious that nothing should induce him, unless under the pressure of some great extremity, to appear even to oppose them on any matter before the House. Therefore, from a very delicate sense of honour, he did not 104 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. 1 8, say what I am sure he would have been glad to have said, and the proposition did not receive from him that help which, if it had received it, would have surmounted all obstacles. To show the sort of men who are made ministers — Sir John Hobhouse had on these occasions always a speech of the same sort. He said this : ' With respect to the peculiar urgency of the time, he could not say the honourable Gentleman had made out his case ; for he found that the importation of cotton from all countries showed an immense increase during the last three years.' We know that the importation of cotton has shown an 'immense increase' almost every three years for the last fifty years. But it was because that increase was entirely, or nearly so, from one source, and that source one of extreme peril, that I asked for the inquiry for which I moved. He said he had a letter in his hand — and he shook it at me — from the Secretary of the Commercial Association of Manchester, in which the di lectors of that body declared by special resolution that my proposition was not necessary, that an inquiry might do harm, and that they were abundantly satisfied with everything that these lords of Leadenhall-street were doing. He said, ' Such was the letter of the Secre tary of the Association, and it was a complete answer to the hon. Gentle man who had brought forward this motion.' At this moment one of these gentle men to whom I have referred, then President of the Board of Control, Go vernor of India, author, as he told a committee on which I sat, of the Affghan war, is now decorated with a Norman title — for our masters even after a lapse of eight hundred years ape the Norman style — sits in the House of Peers, and legislates for you, having neglected in regard to India every great duty which appertained to his high office ; and to show that it is not only cabinets and monarchs who thus distribute honours and rewards, the President of that Com mercial Association through whose in stigation that letter was written is now one of the representatives of Manchester, the great centre of that manufacture whose very foundation is now crumbling into ruin. But I was not, although discouraged, baffled. I went down to the Chamber of Commerce in Manchester, and along with Mr. Bazley, then the President of the Chamber, I believe, and Mr. Hemy Ashworth, who is now the President of that Chamber, and many others, we determined to have a Commission of In quiry of our own. We raised a subscrip tion of more than 2,oooZ. ; we selected a gentleman — Mr. Alexander Mackay, the author of one of the very best books ever written by an Englishman upon America, The Western World — and we invited him to become our Commis sioner, and, unfortunately for him, he accepted the office. He went to India, he made many inquiries, he wrote many interesting reports ; but, like many others who go to India, his health declined; he returned from Bombay, but he did not live to reach home. We were greatly disappointed at this on public grounds, besides our regret for the loss of one of so much private worth. Some of us, Mr. Bazley par ticularly, undertook the charge of pub lishing these reports, and a friend of Mr. Mackay's, now no longer living, undertook the editorship of them, and they were published in a volume called Western India ; and that volume received such circulation as a work of that na ture is likely to have. In the year 1853 there came the proposition for the renewal of the East India Company's charter. I opposed that to the utmost of my power in the House of Commons, and some of you will recollect I came down here with Mr. Danby Seymour, the Member for Poole, a gentleman well acquainted with Indian affairs, and attended a meeting in this very hall, to denounce the policy of conferring the government of that great country for another twenty years upon a Company which had so entirely neglected every duty belonging to it 1862. AMERICA. II. "5 except one — the duty of collecting taxes. In 1854, Colonel Cotton — now Sir Arthur Cotton, one of the most dis tinguished engineers in India — came down to Manchester. We had a meeting at the Town Hall, and he gave an address on the subject of opening the Godavery River, in order that it might form a mode of transit, cheap and ex peditious, from the cotton districts to the north of that river; and it was proposed to form a joint- stock company to do it, but unfortunately the Russian war came on and disturbed all com mercial projects, and made it impos sible to raise money for any — as some might call it — speculative purpose, like that of opening an Indian river. Well, in 1857 there came the mutiny. What did our rulers do then ? Sir Charles Wood, in 1853, had made a speech five hours long, most of it in praise of the government of the East India Company. In 1858 — at the open ing of the session in 1858, 1 think — the Government brought in a Bill to abolish that Company, and to establish a new form of government for India. That was exactly what we asked them to do in 1853; but, as in everything else, nothing is done until there comes an overwhelming calamity, when the most obtuse and perverse is driven from his position. In 1858 that Bill passed, under the auspices of Lord Stanley. It was not a Bill such as I think Lord Stanley approved when he was not a Minister ; it was not a Bill such as I believe he would have brought in if he had been permitted by the House and the Cabinet to have brought in a better Bill. It abolished the East India Com pany, established a new Council, and left things to a great extent much in the same state as they were. During the discussion of that Bill, I made a speech on Indian affairs, which I believe goes to the root of the matter. I protested then as now against the notion of governing one hundred and fifty millions of people— twenty different nations, with twenty different langua ges—from a little coterie of rulers in the city of Calcutta. I proposed that the country should be divided into five or six separate, and, as regards each other, independent Presidencies of equal rank, with a governor and council in each, and each government corresponding with, and dependent upon, and respon sible to, a Secretary of State in this country. I am of opinion that if such a Government were established, one in each Presidency, and if there was a first-class engineer, with an efficient staff, whose business should be to deter mine what public works should be carried on, some by the Government and some by private companies — I believe that ten years of such judicious labours would work an entire revolution in the condition of India ,• and if it had been done when I first began to move in this question, I have not the smallest doubt we might have had at this moment any quantity of cotton whatever that the mills of Lancashire require. Well, after this, I am afraid some of my friends may feel, and my opponents will say, that it is very egotistical in me to have entered into these details. But I think, after this recapitulation, I am at liberty to say I am guiltless of that calamity which has fallen upon us. And I may mention that some friends of mine — Mr. John Dickinson, now Chairman of the Indian Reform Asso ciation, Mr. Bazley, one of the Members for Manchester, Mr. Ashworth, the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester, and Mr. John Benjamin Smith, the Member for Stockport — present themselves at this moment to my eyes as those who have been largely instrumental in calling the attention of Parliament and of the country to this great question of the reform of our Government in India. But I have been asked twenty, fifty times during the last twelve months, ' Why do you not come out and say something? Why can you not tell us something in this time of our great need?' Well, I reply, 'I told you something when speaking was of use; all I can say now is this, or nearly all, io6 SPEECHES • OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. 1 8, that a hundred years of crime against the negro in America, and a hundred years of crime against the docile natives of our Indian empire, are not to be washed away by the penitence and the suffering of an hour.' But what is our position? for you who are subscribing your money here have a right to know. I believe the quantity of cotton in the United States is at this moment much less than many people here believe, and that it is in no condition to be forwarded and exported. And I suspect that it is far more pro bable than otherwise notwithstanding some of the strange theories of my honourable Colleague, that there never will again be in America a crop of cotton grown by slave labour. You will understand — I hope so, at least — that I am not undertaking the office of prophet, I am not predicting; I know that everything which is not absolutely impossible may happen, and therefore things may happen wholly different to the course which appears to me to be likely. But I say, taking the facts as they are before us — with that most limited vision which is given to mortals — the high probability is that there will never be another considera ble crop, or one available for our manufactories, from slave labour in the United States. We read the American papers, or the quotations from them in our own papers, but I believe we can form no adequate conception of the disorganiza tion and chaos that now prevail through out a great portion of the Southern States. It is natural to a state of war under the circumstances of society . in that region. But then we may be asked, What are our sources of supply, putting aside India? There is the colony of Queensland, where enthusiastic persons tell you cotton can be grown worth 3s. a pound. True enough ; but, when labour is probably worth 10s. a- day, I am not sure you are likely to get any large supply of that material we so much want, at a rate so cheap that we shall be likely to use it. Africa is pointed to by a very zealous friend of mine ; 'but Africa is a land of savages, and with its climate so much against European constitutions, I should not entertain the hope that any great relief at any early period can be had from that continent. Egypt will send us 30,000 or 40,000 bales more than last year ; in all probability Syria and Brazil, with these high prices, will increase their production to some considerable extent ; but I believe there is no country at present from which you can derive any very large supply, except you can get it from your own dependencies in India. Now if there be no more cotton to be grown for two, or three, or four years in America, for our supply, we shall require, considering the smallness of the bales and the loss in working up the cotton — we shall require nearly 6,000,000 of additional bales to be supplied from some source. I want to put to you one question. It has taken the United States twenty years, from 1840 up to i860, to increase their growth of cotton from 2,000,000 bales to 4,000,000. How long will it take any other country, with compa ratively little capital, with a thousand disadvantages which America did not suffer from — how long will it take any other countiy, or all other countries, to give us 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 addi tional bales of cotton ? There is one stimulus — the only one that I know of; and although I have not recommended it to the Government, and I know not precisely what sacrifice it would entail, yet I shall mention it, and I do it on the authority of a gentleman to whom I have referred, who is thoroughly acquainted with Indian agriculture, and whose family have been landowners and cultivators in India for sixty years. He says there is only one mode by which you can rapidly stimulate the growth of cotton in India, except that stimulus coming from the high prices for the time being, — he says that, if the Govern ment would make a public declaration that for five years they would exempt from land-tax all land which during 1862. AMERICA. II. 107 that time shall grow cotton, there would be the most extraordinary increase in the growth of that article which has ever been seen in regard to any branch of agriculture in the world. I do not know how far that would act, but I believe the stimulus would be enormous, — the loss to the Government in revenue would be something, but the deliverance to the industiy of Lanca shire, if it succeeded, as my friend thinks, would of course be speedy, and perhaps complete. Short of this, I look upon the restoration of the prosperity of Lancashire as distant. I believe this misfortune may entail rain upon the whole working population, and that it may gradually engulf the smaller traders and those possessing the least capital. I do not say it will, because, as I have said, what is not impossible may happen, — but it may for years make the whole factory property of Lancashire almost entirely worthless. Well, this is a very dismal look-out for a great many persons in this coun try ; but it comes, as I have said, — it comes from that utter neglect of their opportunities and their duties which has distinguished the Government of India. Now, Sir, before I sit down I shall ask you to listen to me for a few moments on the other branch of this great question, which refers to that sad tragedy which is passing' before our eyes in the United States of America. I shall not, in consequence of anything you have heard from my hon. Friend, conceal from you any of the opinions which I hold, and which I proposed to lay before you if he had not spoken. Having given to him, notwithstanding some diversity of opinion, a fair and candid hearing, I presume that I shall receive the same favour from those who may differ from me. If I had known that my hon. Friend was going to make an elaborate speech on this occasion, one of two things I should have done : I should either have prepared myself entirely to answer him, or I should have decided nOt to attend a meeting where there could by any possibility of chance have been anything like dis cord -between so many — his friends and my friends — in this room. Since I have been Member for Bir mingham, Mr. Scholefield has treated me with the kindness of a brother. Nothing could possibly be more ge nerous and more disinterested in every way than his conduct towards me during these several years, and therefore I would much rather — far rather — that I lostany opportunity like this of speaking on this question, than I would have come here and appeared to be at vari ance with him. But I am happy to say that this great question does not depend upon the opinion of any man in Birmingham, or in England, or anywhere else. And therefore I could— anxious always, unless imperative duty requires, to avoid even a semblance of difference — I could with a clear conscience have abstained from coming to and speaking at this meeting. But I observe that my hon. Friend endeavoured to avoid committing him self to what is called sympathy with the South. He takes a political view of this great question, — is disposed to deal with the matter as he would have dealt with the case of a colony of Spain or Portugal revolting in South America, or of Greece revolting from Turkey. I should like to state here what I once said to an eminent American. He asked me if I could give him an idea of the course of public opinion in this country from the moment we heard of the seces sion of the Cotton States ; and I en deavoured to trace it in this way, — and I ask you to say whether it is a fair and full description. I said — and my hon. Friend has admitted this — that when the revolt or secession was first announced, people here were generally against the South. Nobody thought then that the South had any cause for breaking up the in tegrity of that great nation. Their opinion was, and what people said, ac cording to their different politics in this country was, 'They have a Government io8 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec 18, which is mild, and not in any degree oppressive; they have not what some people love very much, and what some people dislike, — they have not a costly monarchy, and an aristocracy, creating and living on patronage. They have not an expensive foreign policy ; a great army ; a great navy ; and they have no suffering millions discontented and en deavouring to overthrow their Govern ment ; — all which things have been said against Governments in this country and in Europe a hundred times within our own hearing,' — and therefore, they said, 'Why should these men revolt ?' But for a moment the Washington- Government appeared paralyzed. It had no army and no navy ; everybody was traitor to it. It was paralyzed and apparently helpless ; and in the hour when the government was transferred from President Buchanan to President Lincoln, many people — such was the unprepared state of the North, such was the apparent paralysis of everything there — thought there would be no war ; and men shook hands with each other pleasantly, and congratulated themselves that the disaster of a great strife, and the mischief to our own trade, might be avoided. That was the opinion at that moment, so far as I can recollect, and could gather at the time, with my opportunities of gathering such opinion. They thought the North would acquiesce in the rending of the Republic, and that there would be no. war. Well, but there was another reason. They were told by certain public writers in this country that the contest was entirely hopeless, as they have been told lately by the Chancellor of the Ex chequer. I am very happy that, though the Chancellor of the Exchequer is able to decide to a penny what shall be the amount of taxes to meet public expendi ture in England, he cannot decide what shall be the fate of a whole continent. It was said that the contest was hope less, and why should the North continue a contest at so much loss of blood and treasure, and at so great a loss to the commerce of the whole world? If a man thought — if a man believed in his heart that the contest was absolutely hopeless — no man in this country had probably any right to form a positive opinion one way or the other — but if he had formed that opinion, he might think, ' Well, the North can never be successful ; it would be much better that they should not carry on the war at all ; and therefore I am rather glad that the South should have success, for by that the war will be the sooner put an end to.' I think this was a feeling that was abroad. Now I am of opinion that, if we judge a foreign nation in the circum stances in which we find America, we ought to apply to it our own principles. My hon. Friend has referred to the question of the Trent. I was not here last year, but I heard of a meeting— I read in the papers of a meeting held in reference to that affair in this very hall, and that there was a great diversity of opinion. But the majority were supposed to indorse the policy of the Government in making a great demon stration of force. And I think I read that at least one minister of religion took that view from this platform. I am not complaining of it. But I say that if you thought when the American captain, even, if he had acted under the commands of his Government, which he had not, had taken two men most injurious and hostile to his country from the deck of an English ship — if you thought that on that ground you were justified in going to war with the Re public of North America, then I say you ought not to be very nice in judging what America should do in circum stances much more onerous than those in which you were placed. Now, take as an illustration the Rock of Gibraltar. Many of you have been there, I dare say. I have ; and among the things that interested me were the monkeys on the top of it, and a good many people at the bottom, who were living on English taxes. Well, the Rock of Gibraltar was taken and retained by this country when we were not at 1S62. AMERICA. II. 109 war with Spain, and it was retained contrary to every law of morality and honour. [A Voice : ' No ! No !'] No doubt the Gentleman below is much better acquainted with the history of it than I am, but I may suggest to him that very likely we have read two different histories. But I will let this pass, and I will assume that it came into the possession of England in the most honourable way, which is, I sup pose, by regular and acknowledged na tional warfare. Suppose, at this moment, you heard, or the English Government heard, that Spain was equipping expeditions, by land and sea, for the purpose of retaking that fortress and rock. Now, although it is not of the slightest advantage to any Englishman living, excepting to those who have pensions and occupa tions upon it ; although every Govern ment knows it, and although more than one Government has been anxious to give it up, and I hope this Government will send my friend, Mr. Cobden, to Madrid, with an offer that Gibraltar shall be ceded to Spain, as being of no use to this country, and only embitter ing, as statesmen have admitted, the relations between Spain and England, — and if he were to go to Madrid with an offer of the Rock of Gibraltar, I believe he might obtain a commercial treaty with Spain, that would admit every English manufacture and every article of English produce into that country at a duty of not more than ten per - cent. ; — I say, do you not think that, if you heard that Spain was about to retake that useless rock, mustering her legions and her fleets, the English Go vernment would combine all the power of this country to resist it ? If that be so, then I think — seeing that there was a fair election two years ago, and that President Lincoln was fairly and honestly elected — that when the Southern leaders met at Montgo mery in Alabama, on the 6th of March, and authorized the raising of a hundred thousand men, and when, on the 15th of April, they attacked Fort Sumter — not a fort of South Carolina, but a fort of the Union — then, upon all the prin ciples that Englishmen and English Governments have ever acted upon, President Lincoln was justified in calling out seventy-five thousand men — which was his first call — for the puipose of maintaining the integrity of that nation, which was the main purpose of the oath which he had taken at his election. Now I shall not go into a long argument upon this question, for the reason that a year ago I said what I thought it necessary to say upon it, and because I believe the question is in the hand, not of my hon. Friend, nor in that of Lord Palmerston, nor in that even of President Lincoln, but it is in the hand of the Supreme Ruler, who is bringing about one of those great trans actions in history which men often will not regard when they are passing be fore them, but which they look back upon with awe and astonishment some years after they are past. So I shall content myself with asking one or two questions. I shall not discuss the question whether the North is making war for the Constitution, or making war for the abolition of slavery. If you come to a matter of sympathy with the South, or recognition of the South, or mediation or intervention for the benefit of the South, you should con sider what are the ends of the South. Surely the United States' Government is a Government at amity with this country. Its Minister is in London — a man honourable by family, as you know, in America, his father and his grand father having held the office of President of the Republic. You have your own Minister just returned to Washington. Is this hypocrisy? Are you, because you can cavil at certain things which the North, the United States' Govern ment, has done or has not done, are you eagerly to throw the influence of your opinion into a movement which is to dismember the great Republic ? Is there a man here that doubts for a moment that the object of the war on SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 1 8, the part of the South — they began the war — that the object of the war on the part of the South is to maintain in bondage four millions of human beings ? That is only a small part of it. The further object is to perpetuate for ever the bondage of all the posterity of those four millions of slaves. [A few cries of ' No ! No J'] You will hear that I am not in a condition to contest vigorously anything that may be opposed, for I am suffering, as nearly everybody is, from the state of the weather, and a hoarse ness that almost hinders me from speaking.. I could quote their own documents till midnight in proof of what I say ; and if I found a man who denied it, upon the evidence that had been offered, I would not offend him, or trouble myself by trying further to con vince him. The object is, that a handful of white men on that continent shall lord it over many millions of blacks, made black by the very Hand that made us white. The object is, that they should have the power to breed negroes, to work negroes, to lash negroes, to chain negroes, to, buy and sell negroes, to deny them the commonest ties of family, or to break their hearts by rending them at their pleasure, to close their mental eye to but a glimpse even of that knowledge which separates us from ,the brute — for in their laws it is cri minal and penal to teach the negro to read — to seal from their hearts the Book of our religion, andto make chattels and things of men and women and children. Now I want to ask whether this is to be the foundation, as it is proposed, of a new slave ' empire, and whether it is intended that on this audacious and infernal basis England's new ally is to be built up. It has been said that Greece was recognized, and that other countries had been recognized. But Greece was not recognized till after she had fought Turkey for six years, and the Republics of South America, some of them, not till they had fought the mother country for a score of years. France did not recognize the United States of America till some, I think, six years, five certainly, after the beginning of the War of Independence, and even then it was received as a declaration of war by the English Government. I want to know who they are who speak eagerly in favour of England becoming the ally and friend of this great con spiracy against human nature. Now I should have no kind of objec tion to recognize a country because it was a country that held slaves — to recognize the United States, or to be in amity with it. The question of slavery there, and in Cuba and in Brazil, is, as far as respects the present generation, an accident, and it would be unreason able that we should object to trade with and have political relations with a country, merely because it happened to have within its borders the institution of slavery, hateful as that institution is. But in this case it is a new State intend ing to set itself up on the sole basis of slavery. Slavery is blasphemously declared to be its chief corner-stone. I have heard that there are, in this countiy, ministers of state who are in favour of the South ; that there are members of the aristocracy who are terrified at the shadow of the Great Republic; that there are rich men on our commercial exchanges, depraved, it may be, by their riches, and thriving unwholesomely within the atmosphere of a privileged class; that there are conductors of the public press who would barter the rights of millions of their fellow-creatures that they might bask in the smiles of the great. But I know that there are ministers of state who do not wish that this insurrection should break up the Ame rican nation ; that there are members of our aristocracy who are not afraid of the shadow of the Republic ; that there are rich men, many, who are not de praved by their riches ; and that there are public writers of eminence and honour who will not barter human rights for the patronage of the great. But most of all, and before all, I believe, — I am sure it is true in Lanca- 1862. AMERICA. II. shire, where the working men have seen themselves coming down from pros perity to ruin, from independence to a subsistence on charity, — I say that I believe that the unenfranchised but not hopeless millions of this countiy will never sympathize with a revolt which is intended to destroy the liberty of a continent, and to build on its ruins a mighty fabric of human bondage. When I speak to gentlemen in private upon this matter, and hear their own candid opinion, — I mean those who differ from me on this question, — they generally end by saying that the Re public is too great and too powerful, and that it is better for us — not by ' us' meaning you, but the governing classes and the governing policy of England — that it should be broken up. But we will suppose that we are in New York or in Boston, discussing the policy and power of England. If any one there were to point to England, — not to the thirty-one millions of population in these islands, but to her one hundred and fifty millions in India, and nobody knows how many millions more in every other part of the globe, — might he not, whilst boasting that America has not covered the ocean with fleets of force, or left the bones of her citizens to blanch on a hundred European battle fields, — might he not fairly say, that England is great and powerful, and that it is perilous for the world that she is so great ? But bear in mind that every declara tion of this kind, whether from an Englishman who professes to be strictly English, or from an American strictly American, or from a Frenchman strictly French, — whether it asserts in arrogant strains that Britannia rules the waves, or speaks of ' manifest destiny ' and the supremacy of the ' Stars and Stripes,' or boasts that the Eagles of one nation, having once overrun Europe, may pos sibly repeat the experiment, — I say all this is to be condemned. It is not truly patriotic ; it is not rational ; it is not moral. Then, I say, if any man wishes the Great Republic to be severed on that ground : in my opinion, he is doing that which tends to keep alive jealousies which, as far as he can prevent it, will never die; though if they do not die, wars must be eternal. But then I shall be told that the people of the North do not like us at all. In fact, we have heard it to-night. It is not reasonable that they should like us. If an American be in this room to-night, will he feel that he likes my honourable Friend ? But if the North does not like England, does anybody believe the South does ? It does not appear to. me to be a question of liking or disliking. Everybody knows that when the South was in power, — and it has been in power for the last fifty years, — eveiybody knows that hostility to this country, wherever it existed in America, was cherished and stimulated to the utmost degree by some of those very men who are now leaders of this veiy insurrection. My hon. Friend read a passage about the Alabama. I undertake to say that he is not acquainted with the facts about the Alabama. That he will ac knowledge, I think. The Government of this country have admitted that the building of the Alabama, and her sailing from the Mersey, was a violation of international law. In America they say, and they say here, that the Alabama is a ship of war ; that she was built in the Mersey ; that she was built, and I have reason to believe it, by a member of the British Parliament; that she is furnished with guns of English manufacture ; that she is manned almost entirely by Eng lishmen ; and that these facts were represented, as I know they were repre sented, to the collector of customs in Liverpool, who pooh-poohed them, and said there was nothing in them. He was requested to send the facts up to London to the Customs' authorities, and their solicitor, not a very wise man, but probably in favour of breaking up the Republic, did not think them of much consequence ; but afterwards the opinion of an eminent counsel, Mr. Collier, the Member for Plymouth, was SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. 1 8, taken, and he stated distinctly that what was being done in Liverpool was a direct infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, and that the Customs' authorities of Liverpool would be re sponsible for anything that happened in consequence. When this opinion was taken to the Foreign Office, the Foreign Office was a little astonished and a little troubled; and after they had consulted their own law officers, whose opinions agreed with that of Mr. Collier, they did what Government officers generally do, and as promptly, — a telegraphic message went down to Liveipool to order that this vessel should be seized, and she happened to sail an hour or two before the message arrived. She has never been into a Confederate port — they have not got any ports ; she hoists the English flag when she wants to come alongside a ship ; she sets a ship on fire in the night, and when, seeing fire, another ship bears down to lend help, she seizes it, and pillages and bums it. I think that, if we were citizens of New York, it would require a little more calmness than is shown in this country to look at all this as if it was a matter with which we had no concern. And therefore I do not so much blame the language that has been used in Ame rica in reference to the question of the Alabama. But they do not know in America so much as we know — the whole truth about public opinion here. There are ministers in our Cabinet as resolved to be no traitors to freedom, on this ques tion, as I am ; and there are members of the English aristocracy, and in the very highest rank, as I know for a certainty, who hold the same opinion. They do not know in America — at least, there has been no indication of it until the advices that have come to hand within the last two days — what is the opinion of the great body of the working classes in England. There has been every effort that money and malice could make to stimulate in Lan cashire, amongst the suffering popula tion, an expression of opinion in favour of the Slave States. They have not been able to get it. And I honour that population for their fidelity to princi ples and to freedom, and I say that the course they have taken ought to atone in the minds of the people of the United States for miles of leading articles, writ ten by the London press, — by men who would barter every human right, — that they might serve the party with which they are associated. But now I shall ask you one other question before I sit down, — How comes it that on the Continent there is not a liberal newspaper, nor a liberal politician, that has said, or has thought of saying, a word in favour of this por tentous and monstrous shape which now asks to be received into the family of nations ? Take the great Italian Minis ter, Count Cavour. You read some time ago in the papers part of a des patch which he wrote on the question of America — he had no difficulty in deciding. Ask Garibaldi. Is there in Europe a more disinterested and ge nerous friend of freedom than Gari baldi ? Ask that illustrious Hungarian, to whose marvellous eloquence you once listened in this hall. Will he tell you that slavery has nothing to do with it, and that the slaveholders of the South will liberate the negroes sooner than the North through the instru mentality of the war ? Ask Victor Hugo, the poet of freedom, — the expo nent, may I not call him, of the yearn ings of all mankind for a better time ? Ask any man in Europe who opens his lips for freedom, — who dips his pen in ink that he may indite a sentence for freedom, — whoever has a sympathy for freedom warm in his own heart, — ask him, — he will have no difficulty in telling you on which side your sym pathies should lie. Only a few days ago a German mer chant in Manchester was speaking to a friend of mine, and said he had recently travelled all through Germany. He said, ' I am so surprised, — I don't find one man in favour of the South.' That 1862. AMERICA. II. "3 is not true of Germany only, it is true of all the world except this island, famed for freedom, in which we dwell. I will tell you what is the reason. Our London press is mainly in the hands of certain ruling West End classes ; it acts and writes in favour of those classes. I will tell you what they mean. One of the most eminent statesmen in this countiy, — one who has rendered the greatest services to the country, though, I must say, not in an official capacity, in which men very seldom confer such great ad vantages upon the country, — he told me twice, at an interval of several months, ' I had no idea how much influence the example of that Republic was having upon opinion here, until I discovered the universal congratulation that the Republic was likely to be broken up.' But, Sir, the Free States are the home of the working man. Now, I speak to working men particularly at this moment. Do you know that in fifteen years two million five hundred thousand persons, men, women, and children, have left the United Kingdom to find a home in the Free States of America? That is a population equal to eight great cities of the size of Bir mingham. What would you think of eight Birminghams being transplanted from this country and set down in the United States ? Speaking generally, every man of these two and a half millions is in a position of much higher comfort and prosperity than he would have been if he had remained in this country. I say it is the home of the working man ; as one of her poets has recently said, — ' For her free latch-string never was drawn in Against the poorest child of Adam's kin.' And in that land there are no six millions of grown men — I speak of the Free States — excluded from the consti tution of their countiy and its electoral franchise; there, you will find a free Church, a free school, free land, a free vote, and a free career for the child of the humblest born in the land. My countrymen who work for your living, remember this : there will be one wild shriek of freedom to startle all mankind if that American Republic should be overthrown. Now for one moment let us lift ourselves, if we can, above the narrow circle in which we are all too apt to live and think ; let us put ourselves on an historical eminence, and judge this matter fairly. Slavery has been, as we all know, the huge, foul blot upon the fame of the American Republic ; it is a hideous outrage against human right and against Divine law ; but the pride, the passion of man, will not permit its peaceable extinction. The slave-owners of our colonies, if they had been strong enough, would have revolted too. I believe there was no mode short of a miracle more stupendous than any re corded in Holy Writ that could in our time, or in a century, or in any time, have brought about the abolition of slavery in America, but the suicide which the South has committed and the war which it has begun. Sir, it is a measureless calamity, — this war. I said the Russian war was a measureless calamity, and yet many of your leaders and friends told you that it was a just war to maintain the integrity of Turkey, some thousands of miles off. Surely the integrity of your own country at your own doors must be worth as much as the integrity of Turkey. Is not this war the penalty which inex orable justice exacts from America, North and South, for the enormous guilt of cherishing that frightful iniquity of slavery for the last eighty years ? I do not blame any man here who thinks the cause of the North hopeless and the restoration of the Union impossible. It may be hopeless ; the restoration may be impossible. You have the authority of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that point. The Chan cellor of the Exchequer, as a speaker, is not surpassed by any man in England, and he is a great statesman ; he believes ii4 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. the cause of the North to be hopeless.; that their enterprise cannot succeed. Well, he is quite welcome to that opinion, and so is anybody else. I do not hold the opinion ; but the facts are before us all, and, as far as we can discard passion and sympathy, we are all equally at liberty to form our own opinion. But what I do blame is this. I blame men who are eager to admit into the family of nations a State which offers itself to us, based upon a prin ciple, I will undertake to say, more odious and more blasphemous than was ever heretofore dreamed of in Christian or Pagan, in civilized or in savage times. ' The leaders of this revolt propose this monstrous thing — that over a territory forty times as large as England, the blight and curse of slavery shall be for ever perpetuated. I cannot believe, for my part, that such a fate will befall that fair land, stricken though it now is with the ravages of war. I cannot believe that civilization, in its journey with the sun, will sink into endless night in order to gratify the ambition of the leaders of this revolt, who seek to 'Wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on man kind.' I have another and a far brighter vision before my gaze. It may be but a vision, but I will cherish it. I see one vast confederation stretching from the frozen North in unbroken line to the glowing South, and from the wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific main, — and I see one people, and one language, and one law, and one faith, and, over all that wide continent, the home of free dom, and a refuge for the oppressed of every race and of every clime. AMERICA. Hi. SLAVERY AND SECESSION. ROCHDALE, FEBRUARY 3, 1863. [This speech was delivered at a public meeting held in the Public Hall, Rochdale, for the purpose of passing a resolution of thanks to the merchants of New York, for their generous contributions to the relief of the suffering population of the cotton districts.] I feel as if we were in our places to night, for we are met for the purpose of considering, and, I doubt not, of agreeing to a resolution expressive of our sense of the generosity of the merchants of New York, and other citizens of the United States, who have, in the midst of so many troubles and such great sacrifices, contributed to the relief of that appalling distress which has pre vailed, and does still prevail, in this county. I regard this transmission of assist ance from the United States as a proof that the world moves onward in the direction of a better time. It is an evidence that, whatever may be the faults of ambitious men, and sometimes, may I not say, the crimes of Govern ments, the peoples are drawing together, and beginning to learn that it never was intended that they should be hos tile to each other, but that every nation should take a brotherly interest in every other nation in the world. There has been, as we all know, not a little jealousy between some portions of the people of this countiy and some por tions of the people of the United States. Perhaps the jealousy has existed more on this side. I think it has found more expression here, probably through the means of the public press, than has been the case with them. I am not alluding now to the last two years, but as long as most of us have been readers of newspapers and observers of what has passed around us. The establishment of independence, eighty years ago; the war of 181 2; it may be, occasionally, the presump- tuousness and the arrogance of a growing and prosperous nation on the other side of the Atlantic — these things have stimulated ill feeling and jealousy here, which have often found expression in language which has not been of the very kindest character. But why should there be this jealousy between these two nations ? Mr Ashworth has said, and said very truly, ' Are they not our own people?' I should think, as an En glishman, that to see that people so numerous, so powerful, so great in so many ways, should be to us a cause, not of envy or of fear, but rather of glory and rejoicing. I have never visited the United States, n6 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 3, but I can understand the pleasure with which an Englishman lands in a country three thousand miles off, and finds that every man he meets speaks his own language. I. recollect some years ago reading a most amusing speech delivered by a Suffolk country gentleman, at a Suffolk agricultural dinner, I think it was, though I do not believe the speeches of Suffolk country gentlemen at Suffolk agricultural meetings are generally very amusing. But this was a very amusing speech. This gentleman had travelled; he had been in the United States, and being intelligent enough to admire much that he saw there, he gave to his audience a de scription of some things that he had seen ; but that which seemed to delight him most was this, that when he stepped from the steamer on to the quay at New York, he found that ' everybody spoke Suffolk.' Now, if anybody from this neighbourhood should visit New York, I am afraid that he will not find everybody speaking Lancashire. Our dialect, as you know, is vanishing into the past. It will be preserved to future times, partly in the works of Tim Bobbin, but in a very much better and more instructive form in the admirable writings of one of my oldest and most valued friends, who is now upon this platform. But if we should not find the people of New York speaking Lanca shire, we should find them speaking English. And if we followed a little further, and asked them what they read, we should find that they read all the books that we read that are worth reading, and a good many of their own, some of which have not yet reached us ; that there are probably more readers in the United States of Milton, and Shake speare, and Dryden, and Pope, and Byron, and Wordsworth, and Tennyson, than are to be found in this country ; because, I think, it will probably be admitted by everybody who understands the facts of both countries, that out of the twenty millions of population in the Free States of America, there are more persons who can read well than there are in the thirty millions of popula tion of Great Britain and Ireland. And if we leave their literature and turn to their laws, we shall find that their laws have the same basis as ours, and that many of the great and memo rable judgments of our greatest judges and lawyers are of high authority with them. If we come to that priceless possession which we have perhaps more clearly established than any other people in Europe, that of personal freedom, we shall find that in the Free States of America personal freedom is as much known, as well established, as fully appreciated, and as completely enjoyed as it is now in this country. And if we come to the form of their government, we shall find that it is in its principle, in its essence, not very dissimilar from that which our Constitution professes in this kingdom. The difference is this, that our Constitution has never yet been fully enjoyed by the people ; the House in which forty-eight hours hence I may be sitting, is not as full and fair and free a representation of the people as is the House of Representatives that assembles at Washington. But, if there be dif ferences, are there not great points of agreement, and are there any of these differences that justify us or them in re garding either nations as foreign or hostile? Now, the people of Europe owe much more than they are often aware of to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the existence of that great Republic. The United States have been in point of fact an ark of refuge to the people of Europe, when fleeing from the storms and the revo lutions of the old continent. They have been, as far as the artisans and labouring population of this country are concerned, a life-boat to them; and they have saved hundreds of thousands of men and of families from disastrous shipwreck. The existence of that free country and that free government has had a prodigious influence upon freedom in Europe and in England. If you could have before you a chart of the i863. AMERICA. III. 117 condition of Europe when the United States became a nation, and another chart of the condition of Europe now, you would see the difference, the enor mous stride which has been made in Europe ; and you may rely upon it that not a little of it has been occa sioned by the influence of the great example of that country, free in its political institutions beyond all other countries, and yet maintaining its course in peace, preserving order, and confer ring upon all its people a degree of prosperity which in these old countries is as yet unknown. I should like now to speak specially to the working men who are here, who have no capital but their skill and their industry and their bodily strength. In fifteen years from 1845 to i860 — and this is a fact which I stated in this room more than a year ago, when speaking on the question of America, but it is a fact which every working man ought to have in his mind always when he is considering what America is — in fifteen years there have emigrated to the United States from Great Britain and Ireland not less than two million four hundred thousand persons. Millions are easily spoken, not easily counted, with great difficulty comprehended ; but the twenty- . four hundred thousand persons that I have described means a population equal to not less than sixty towns, every one of them of the size and population of Rochdale. And every one of these men who have emigrated, as he crossed the Atlantic — if he went by steam, in a fortnight, and if he went by sails, in a month or five weeks — found himself in a country where to his senses a vast revolution had taken place, comprehend ing all that men anticipate from any kind of revolution that shall advance political and social equality in their own land — a revolution which com menced in the War of Independence, which has been going on, and which has been confirmed by all that has transpired in subsequent years. He does not find that he belongs to what are called the ' lower classes ;' he is not shut out from any of the rights of citizenship; he is admitted to the full enjoyment of all political privileges, as far as they are extended to any portion of the population ; and he has there advantages which the people of this country have not yet gained, because we are but gradually making our way out of the darkness and the errors and the tyrannies of past ages. But in America he finds the land not cursed with feudalism ; it is free to every man to buy and sell, and possess and trans mit. He finds in the town in which he lives that the noblest buildings are the school-houses to which his children are freely admitted. And among those twenty millions — for I am now confin ing my observations to the Free States — the son of every man has easy ad mission to school, has fair opportunity for improvement ; and, if God has gifted him with power of head and of heart, there is nothing of usefulness, nothing of greatness, nothing of success in that countiy to which he may not fairly aspire. And, Sir, this makes a difference between that country and this, on which I must say another word. One of the most painful things to my mind to be seen in England is this, that amongst the great body of those classes which earn their living by their daily labour — it is particularly observable in the agricultural districts, and it is too much to be observed even in our own districts — there is an absence of that hope which every man ought to have in his soul that there is for him, if he be industrious and frugal, a comfortable independence as he advances in life. In the United States that hope prevails everywhere, because everywhere there is an open career; there is no privileged class; there is complete education ex tended to all, and every man feels that he was not bom to be in penury and in suffering, but that there is no point in the social ladder to which he may not fairly hope to raise himself by his honest efforts. Well, looking at all this— and I have n8 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 3, but touched on some very prominent facts — I should say that it offers to us every motive, not for fear, not for jealousy, not for hatred, but rather for admiration, gratitude, and friendship. I am persuaded of this as much as I am of anything that I know or believe, that the more perfect the friendship that is established between the people of England and the free people of America, the more you will find your path of progress here made easy for you, and the more will social and political liberty advance amongst us. But this country which I have been in part describing is now the scene of one of the greatest calamities that can afflict mankind. After seventy years of almost uninterrupted peace, it has become the scene of a civil war, more gigantic, perhaps, than any that we have any record of with regard to any other nation or any other people ; for the scene of this warfare is so extended as to embrace a region almost equal in size to the whole of Europe. At this very moment military operations are being undertaken at points as distant from each other as Madrid is distant from Moscow. But this great strife cannot have arisen amongst an educa ted and intelligent people without some great and overruling cause. Let us for a moment examine that cause, and let us ask ourselves whether it is possible at such a time to stand neutral in regard to the contending parties, and to refuse our sympathy to one or the other of them. I find men sometimes who profess a strict neutrality; they wish neither the one thing nor the other. This arises either from the fact that they are profoundly ignorant with regard to this matter, or else that they sympathise with the South, but are rather ashamed to admit it. There are two questions concerned in this struggle. Hitherto, generally, one only has been discussed. There is the question whether negro slavery shall continue to be upheld amongst Chris tian nations, or whether it shall be entirely abolished., Because, bear in mind that if the result of the straggle that is now proceeding in America should abolish slavery within the territories of the United States, then soon after sla very in Brazil, and slavery in Cuba, will also fall. I was speaking the other day to a gentleman well acquainted , with Cuban affairs; he is often in the habit of seeing persons who come from Cuba to this country on business ; and I asked him what his Cuban friends said of what was going on in America. He said, 'They speak of it with the greatest apprehension ; all the property of Cuba,' he said, ' is based on slavery ; and they say that if slavery comes to an end in America, as they believe it will, through this war, slavery will have a very short life in Cuba.' Therefore, the question which is being now tried is, not merely whether four millions of slaves in America shall be free, but whether the vast number of slaves (I know not the number) in Cuba and Brazil shall also be liberated. But there is another question besides that of the negro, and which to you whom I am now addressing is scarcely less important. I say that the question of freedom to men of all races is deeply involved in this great strife in the United States. I said I wanted the working men of this audience to listen to my statement, because it is to them that I particularly wish to address myself. I say, that not only is the question of negro slavery concerned in this straggle, but, if we are to take the opinion of leading writers and men in the Southern States of America, the freedom of white men is not safe in their hands. Now, I will not trouble you with pages of extracts which would confirm all that I am about to say, but I shall read you two or three short ones which will explain exactly what I mean. The city of Richmond, as you know, is the capital of what is called the Southern Confederacy. In that city a newspaper is published, called the Richmond Examiner, which is one of the most able, and perhaps about the most influential, paper published in the i863. AMERICA. III. 119 Slave States. Listen to what the Rich mond Examiner says : — 'The experiment of universal liberty has failed. The evils of free society are insufferable. Free society in the long run is impracticable ; it is everywhere starving, demoralizing, and insurrectionary. Policy and humanity alike forbid the extension of its evils to new peoples and to coming generations ; and therefore free society must fall and give way to a slave society — a social system old as the world, univer sal as man.' Well, on another occasion, the same paper treats the subject in this way. The writer says : — 'Hitherto the defence of slavery has encountered great difficulties, because its apologists stopped half way. They con fined the defence of slavery to negro slavery alone, abandoning the principle of slavery, and admitting that every other form of slavery was wrong. Now the line of defence is changed. The South main tains that slavery is just, natural, and necessary, and that it does not depend on the difference of complexions.' But following up this is an extract from a speech by a Mr. Cobb, who is an eminent man in Southern politics and in Southern opinion. He says : — 'There is, perhaps, no solution of the great problem of reconciling the interests of labour and capital, so as to protect each from the encroachments and oppressions of the other, so simple and effective as negro slavery. By making the labourer himself capital, the conflict ceases, and the interests become identical.' Now, I do not know whether there is any working man here who does not fully or partly realize the meaning of those extracts. They mean this, that if a man in this neighbourhood (for they pity us very much in our benighted condition as regards capital and labour, and they have an admirable way, from their view, of putting an end to strikes) — they say that, if a man in this neighbourhood had ten thousand pounds sterling in a cotton or woollen factory, and he em ployed a hundred men, women, and children, that instead of paying them whatever wages had been agreed upon, allowing them to go to the other side of the town, and work where they liked, or to move to another county, or to emigrate to America, or to have any kind of will or wish whatever with regard to their own disposal, that they should be to him capital, just the same as the horses are in his stable; that he should sell the husband South,— ' South' in America means something very dreadful to the negro, — that he should sell the wife if he liked, that he should sell the children, that, in point of fact, he should do whatsoever he liked with them, and that, if any one of them resisted any punishment which the master chose to inflict, the master should be held justified if he beat his slave to death; and that not one of those men should have the power to give evidence in any court of justice, in any case, against a white man, how ever much he might have suffered from that white man. You will observe that this most im portant paper in the South writes for that principle, and this eminent Southern politician indorses it, and thinks it a cure for all the evils which exist in the Old World and in the Northern and Free States ; and there is not a paper in the South, nor is there a man as emi nent or more eminent than Mr. Cobb, who has dared to write or speak in condemnation of the atrocity of that language. I believe this great strife to have had its origin in an infamous conspiracy against the rights of human nature. Those principles, which they distinctly avow and proclaim, are not to be found, as far as I know, in the pages of any heathen writer of old times, nor are they to be discovered in the teach ings or the practice of savage nations in our times. It is the doctrine of devils, and not of men ; and all mankind should shudder at the enormity of the guilt which the leaders of this conspiracy have brought upon that country. SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 3, Now, let us look at two or three facts, which seem to me very remark able, on the surface of the case, but which there are men in this country, and I am told they may be found even in this town, who altogether ignore and deny. The war was not commenced by those to whom your resolution refers; it was commenced by the South ; they rebelled against the majority. It was not a rebellion against a monarchy, or an aristocracy, or some other form of government which has its hold upon people, sometimes by services, but often from tradition; but it was against a Government of their own, and a com pact of their own, that they violentiy rebelled, and for the expressed and avowed purpose of maintaining the in stitution of slavery, and for the purpose, not disavowed, of re-opening the slave trade, and, as, these extracts show, if their principles should be fully carried out, of making bondage universal among all classes of labourers and artisans. When I say that their object was to re-open the slave trade, do not for a moment imagine that I am overstating the case against them. They argue, with a perfect logic, that, if slavery was right, the slave trade could not be wrong; if the slave trade be wrong, slavery cannot be right ; and that if it be lawful and moral to go to the State of Virginia and buy a slave for two thousand dollars, and take him to Loui siana, it cannot be wrong to go to Africa, and buy a slave for fifty dollars, and take him to Louisiana. That was their argument; it is an argument to this day, and is an argument that in my opinion no man can controvert ; and the lawful existence of slavery is as a matter of course to be followed, and would be followed, wherever there was the power, by the re-opening of the traffic in ne groes from Africa. That is not all these people have done. Reference has been made, in the resolution and in the speeches, to the distress which prevails in this district, and you are told, and have been told over and over again, that all this distress has arisen from the blockade of the ports of the Southern States. There' is at least one great port from which in past times two millions of bales of cotton a-year have found their way to Europe — the port of New Orleans — which is blockaded ; and the United States' Go vernment has proclaimed that any cotton that is sent from the interior to New Orleans for shipment, although it be longs to persons in arms against the Government, shall yet be permitted to go to Europe, and they shall receive unmolested the proceeds of the sale of that cotton. But still the cotton does not come. The reason why it does not come is, not because it would do harm to the United States' Government for it to come, or that it would in any way assist the United States' Government in carrying on the war. The reason that it does not come is, because its being kept back is supposed to be a way of influencing public opinion in England and the course of the English Govern ment in reference to the American war. They bum the cotton that they may injure us, and they injure us because they think that we cannot live even for a year without their cotton ; and that to get it we should send ships of war, break the blockade, make war upon the North, and assist the slave owners to maintain, or to obtain, their independence. Now, with regard to the question of American cotton, one or two extracts will be sufficient; but I could give you a whole pamphlet of them, if it were necessary. Mr. Mann, an eminent person in the State of Georgia, says : — ' With the failure of the cotton, England fails. Stop her supply of Southern slave- grown cotton, and her factories stop, her commerce stops, the healthful normal cir culation of her life-blood stops.' Again he says : — 'In one year from the stoppage of England's supply of Southern slave-grown cotton, the Chartists would be in all her streets and fields, revolution would be i863. AMERICA. III. rampant throughout the island, and no thing that is would exist.' He also says, addressing an audience: — 'Why, Sirs, British lords hold their lands, British bishops hold their revenues, Victoria holds her sceptre, by the grace of cotton, as surely as by the grace of God.' Senator Wigfall says : — ' If we stop the supply of cotton for one week, England would be starving. Queen Victoria's crown would not stand on her head one week, if the supply of cotton was stopped ; nor would her head stand on her shoulders." Mr. Stephens, who is the Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, says : — 'There will be revolution in Europe, there will be starvation there ; our cotton is the element that will do it.' Now, I am not stating the mere result of any discovery of my own, but it would be impossible to read the papers of the South, or the speeches made in the South, before, and at the time of, and after the secession, without seeing that the universal opinion there was, that the stoppage of the supply of cotton would be our instantaneous ruin, and that if they could only lay hold of it, keep it back in the country, or bum it, so that it never could be used, that then the people of Lancashire, mer chants, manufacturers, and operatives in mills — everybody dependent upon this vast industry — would immediately arise and protest against the English Govern ment abstaining for one moment from the recognition of the South, from war with the North, and from a resolution to do the utmost that we could to create a slave-holding independent republic in the South. And these very men who have been wishing to drag us into a war that would have covered us with everlasting infamy, have sent their envoys to this country, Mr. Yancey, Mr. Mann (I do not know whether or not the same Mr. Mann to whom I have been referring), and Mr. Mason, the author of the Fugi tive Slave Law. These men have been in this country, — one of them I believe is here now, — envoys sent to offer friendship to the Queen of England, to be received at her Court, and to make friends with the great men in London. They come, — I have seen them under the gallery of the House of Commons ; I have seen Members of the House shaking hands with them and congratu lating them, if there has been some military success on their side, and re ceiving them as if they were here from the most honourable Government, and with the most honourable mission. Why, the thing which they have broken off from the United States to maintain, is felony by your law. They are not only slave owners, slave buyers and sellers, but that which out of Pandemonium itself was never before conceived, — they are slave breeders for the slave market ; and these men have come to your country, and are to be met with at elegant tables in London, and are in fast friendship with some of your public men, and are constantly found in some of your newspaper offices ; and they are here to ask Englishmen — Englishmen with a history of freedom — to join hands with their atrocious conspiracy. I regret more than I have words to express this painful fact, that of all the countries in Europe this country is the only one which has men in it who are willing to take active steps in favour of this intended slave government. We supply the ships ; we supply the arms, the munitions of war ; we give aid and comfort to this foulest of all crimes. Englishmen only do it. I believe you have not seen a single statement in the newspapers that any French, or Belgian, or Dutch, or Russian ship has been en gaged in, or seized whilst attempting to violate the blockade and to carry arms to the South. They are English Liberal newspapers only which support this stupendous iniquity. They are English statesmen only, who profess to be liberal, who have said a word SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 3, to favour the authors of this now- enacting revolution in America. The other day, not a week since, a member of the present Government, — he is not a statesman — he is the son of a great statesman, and occupies the position of Secretary for Ireland, — he dared to say to an English audience that he wished the Republic to be divided, and that the South should become an independent State. If that island which — I suppose in punishment for some of its offences — has been com mitted to his care, — if that island were to attempt to secede, not to set up a slave kingdom, but a kingdom more free than it has ever yet been, the Government of which he is a member would sack its cities and drench its soil with blood before they would allow such a kingdom to be established. But the working men of England, and I will say it too for the great body of the middle classes of England, have not been wrong upon this great question. As for you, — men labouring from mom till night that you may honourably and honestly maintain your families, and the independence of your households, — you are too slowly emerging from a condition of things far from independent — far from free — for you to have sym pathy with this fearful crime which I , have been describing. You come, as it were, from bonds yourselves, and you can sympathize with them who are still in bondage. See that meeting that was held in Manchester a month ago, in the Free Trade Hall, of five or six thousand men. See the address which they there carried unanimously to the President of the United States. See that meeting held the other night in Exeter Hall, in London ; that vast room, the greatest room, I suppose, in the Metropolis, filled so much that its overflowings filled another large room in the same building, and when that was full, the further overflowings filled the street; and in both rooms, and in the street, speeches were made on this great ques tion. But what is said by the writers in this infamous Southern press in this country with regard to that meeting? Who was there? 'A gentleman who who had written a novel, and two or three Dissenting ministers.' I shall not attempt any defence of those gentlemen. What they do, they do openly, in the face of day; and if they utter senti ments on this question, it is from a public platform, with thousands of their countrymen gazing into their faces. These men who slander them write behind a mask, — and, what is more, they dare not tell in the open day that which they write in the columns of their journal. But if it be true that there is nothing in the writer of a successful novel, or in two or three pious and noble-minded Dissenting ministers, to collect a great audience, what does it prove if there was a great audience? It only proves that they were not col lected by the reputation of any orator who was expected to address them, but by their cordial and ardent sympathy for the great cause which was pleaded before them. Everybody now that I meet says to me, ' Public opinion seems to have undergone a considerable change.' The fact is, people do not know very much about America. They are learning more every day. They have been greatly misled by what are called ' the best public instructors.' Jefferson, who was one of the greatest men that the United States have produced, said that newspapers should be divided into four compartments: in one of them they should print the true ; in the next, the probable; in the third, the possible; and in the fourth, the lies. With regard to some of these newspapers, I incline to think, as far as their leading columns go, that an equal division of space would be found very inconvenient, and that the last-named compartment, when dealing with American questions, would have to be at least four times as large as the first. Coming back to the question of this war: I admit, of course — everybody must admit — that we are not responsi- i863. AMERICA. III. 123 ble for it, for its commencement, or for the manner in which it is conducted; nor can we be responsible for its result. But tiiere is one thing which we are responsible for, and that is for our sympathies, for the manner in which we regard it, and for the tone in which we discuss it. What shall we say, then, with regard to it ? On which side shall we stand ? I do not believe it is pos sible to be strictly, coldly neutral. The question at issue is too great, the contest is too grand in the eye of the world. It is impossible for any man, who can have an opinion worth any thing on any question, not to have some kind of an opinion on the ques tion of this war. I am not ashamed of my opinion, or of the sympathy which I feel, and have over and over again expressed, on the side of the free North. I cannot understand how any man witnessing what is enacting on the American continent can indulge in small cavils against the free people of the North, and close his eye entirely to the enormity of the purposes of the South. I cannot understand how any Englishman, who in past years has been accustomed to say that ' there was one foul blot upon the fair fame of the American Republic,' can now express any sympathy for those who would perpetuate and extend that blot. And, more, if we profess to be, though it be with imperfect and faltering steps, the followers of Him who declared it to be His Divine mission ' to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are braised,' must we not reject with indig nation and scorn the proffered alliance and friendship with a power based on human bondage, and which contem plates the overthrow and the extinction of the dearest rights of the most helpless of mankind? If we are the friends of freedom, per sonal and political, — and we all profess to be so, and most of us, more or less, are striving after it more completely for our own country, — how can we with hold our sympathy from a Government and a people amongst whom white men have always been free, and who are now offering an equal freedom to the black ? I advise you not to believe in the ' destruction' of the American nation. If facts should happen by any chance to force you to believe it, do not commit the crime of wishing it. I do not blame men who draw different conclusions from mine from the facts, and who believe that the restoration of the Union is impossible. As the facts lie before our senses, so must we form a judgment on them. But I blame those men that wish for such a catastrophe. For myself, I have never despaired, and I will not despair. In the language of one of our old poets, who wrote, I think, more than three hundred years ago, I will not despair, — 'For I have seen a ship in haven fall, After the storm had broke both mast and shroud.' From the very outburst of this great convulsion, I have had but one hope and one faith, and it is this — that the result of this stupendous strife may be to make freedom the heritage for ever of a whole continent, and that the grandeur and the prosperity of the American Union may never be im paired. -»•:••:-£- AMERICA. IV. THE STRUGGLE IN AMERICA. ST. JAMES'S HALL, MARCH 26, 1863. [The meeting at which this speech was delivered was convened by the Trades' Unions of London to enable the working men to express their sentiments on the war in the United States. Mr. Bright was Chairman of the meeting.] When the Committee did me the honour to ask me to attend this meeting to-night and to take the Chair, I felt that I was not at liberty to refuse, for I considered that there was something remarkable in the character of this meeting ; and I need not tell you that the cause which we are assembled to discuss is one which excites my warmest sympathies. This meeting is remark able, inasmuch as it is not what is commonly called a public meeting, but it is a meeting, as you have seen from the announcements and advertisements by which it has been called — it is a meeting of members of Trades' Unions and Trades' Societies in London. The members of these Societies have not usually stepped out from their ordinary business to take part in meetings of this kind on public questions. The subject which we have met to discuss is one of surpassing interest— which excites at this moment, and has excited for two years past, the attention and the astonishment of the civilized world. We see a country which for many years — during the lifetime of the oldest amongst us — has been the most peaceful, and prosperous, and the most free amongst the great nations of the earth — we see it plunged at once into the midst of a sanguinary revolution, whose proportion's are so gigantic as to dwarf all other revolutionary records and events of which we have any knowledge. But I do not wonder at this revolution. No man can read the history of the United States from the time when they ceased to be depen dent colonies of England, without discovering that at the birth of that great Republic there was sown the seed, if not of its dissolution, at least of its extreme peril; and the infant giant in its cradle may be said to have been rocked under the shadow of the cypress, which is the symbol of mortality and of the tomb. Colonial weakness, when face to face with British strength, made it impos sible to put an end to slavery, or to i863. AMERICA. IV. "5 establish a republic free from slavery. To meet England, it was necessary to be united, and to be united it was necessary to tolerate slavery ; and from that hour to this — at least, to a period within the last two or three years — the love of the Union and the patriotism of the American people have induced them constantly to make concessions to sla very, because they knew that when they ceased to make concessions they ran the peril of that disruption which has now arrived ; and they dreaded the destruction of their country even more than they hated the evil of slavery. But these concessions failed, as I believe concessions to evil always do fail. These concessions failed to secure safety in that Union. There were principles at war which were wholly irreconcila ble. The South, as you know, has been engaged for fifty years in building fresh ramparts by which it may defend its institutions. The North has been growing yearly greater in freedom ; and though the conflict might be postponed, it was obviously inevitable. In our day, then, that which the statesmen of America have hoped per manently to postpone has arrived. The great trial is now going on in the sight of the world, and the verdict upon this great question must at last be ren dered. But how much is at stake? Some men of this countiy, some writers, treat it as if, after all, it was no great matter that had caused this contest in the United States. I say that a whole continent is at stake. It is not a ques tion of boundary; it is not a question of tariff ; it is not a question of supre macy of party, or even of the condition of four millions of negroes. It is more than that. It is a question of a whole continent, with its teeming millions, and what shall be their present and their future fate. It is for these mil lions freedom or slavery, education or ignorance, light or darkness, Christian morality ever widening and all-blessing in its influence, or an overshadowing and all-blasting guilt. There are men, good men, who say that we in England, who are opposed to war, should take no public part in this great question. Only yesterday I received from a friend of mine, whose fidelity I honour, a letter, in which he asked me whether I thought, with the views which he supposed I entertain on the question of war, it was fitting that I should appear at such a meeting as this. It is not our war ; we did not make it. We deeply lament it. It is not in our power to bring it to a close ; but I know not that we are called upon to shut our eyes and to close our hearts to the great issues which are depending upon it. Now we are met here, let us ask each other some questions. Has England any opinion with regard to this American question? Has Eng land any sympathy, on one side or the other, with either party in this great straggle ? But, to come nearer, I would ask whether this meeting has any opinion upon it, and whether our sym pathies have been stirred in relation to it ? It is true, to this meeting not many rich, not many noble, have been called. It is a meeting composed of artisans and working men of the city of Lon don, — men whose labour, in combina tion with capital and directing skill, has built this great city, and has made England great. I address myself to these men. I ask them — I ask you — have you any special interest in this contest ? Privilege thinks it has a great in terest in it, and every morning, with blatant voice, it comes into your streets and curses the American Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spec tacle for many years past. It has beheld thirty millions of men, happy and pros perous, without emperor, without king, without the surroundings of a court, without nobles, except such as are made by eminence in intellect and virtue, without State bishops and State priests, — ' Sole venders of the lore which works salvation,' — without great armies and great navies, 126 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 26, without great debt and without great taxes. Privilege has shuddered at what might happen to old Europe if this grand experiment should succeed. But you, the workers, — you, striving after a better time, — you, struggling upwards towards the light, with slow and pain ful steps,— you have no cause to look with jealousy upon a country which, amongst all the great nations of the globe, is that one where labour has met with the highest honour, and where it has reaped its greatest reward. Are you aware of the fact, that in fifteen years, which is but as yesterday when it is past, two and a half millions of your countrymen have found a home in the United States, — that a population equal nearly, if not quite, to the popu lation of this great city — itself equal to no mean kingdom — has emigrated from these shores ? In the United States there has been, as you know, an open door for every man, — and millions have entered into it, and have found rest. Now, take the two sections of the country which are engaged in this fear ful straggle. In the one, labour is honoured more than elsewhere in the world ; there, more than in any other country, men rise to competence and independence ; a career is open ; the pursuit of happiness is not hopelessly thwarted by the law. In the other section of that countiy, labour is not only not honoured, but it is degraded. The labourer is made a chattel. He is no more his own than the horse that drags a carriage through the next street ; nor is his wife, nor is his child, nor is anything that is his, his own. And if you have not heard the astounding state ment, it may be as well for a moment to refer to it, — that it is not blade men only who should be slaves. Only to day I read from one of the Southern papers a statement that — 'Slavery in the Jewish times was not the slavery of negroes ; and therefore, if you confine slavery to negroes, you lose your sheet-anchor, which is the Bible- argument in favour of slavery.' I think nothing can be more fitting for the discussion of the members of the Trade Societies of London. You in your Trade Societies help each other when you are sick, or if you meet with accidents. You do many kind acts amongst each other. You have other business also ; you have to maintain what you believe to be the just rights of industry and of your separate trades ; and sometimes, as you know, you do things which many people do not approve, and which, probably, when you come to think more coolly of them, you may even doubt the wisdom of yourselves. That is only saying that you are not immaculate, and that your wisdom, like the wisdom of other classes, is not absolutely perfect. But they have in the Southern States a specific for all the differences between capital and labour. They say, — 'Make the labourer capital; the free system in Europe is a rotten system ; let us get rid of that, and make all the la bourers as much capital and as much the property of the capitalist and employer as the capitalist's cattle and horses are pro perty, and then the whole system will move with that perfect ease and harmony which the world admires so much in the Southern States of America.' I believe there never was a question submitted to the public opinion of the world which it was more becoming the working men and members of Trades' Unions and Trade Societies of every kind in this country fully to consider, than this great question. But there may be some in this room, and there are some who say to me, ' But what is to become of our trade, what is to become of the capitalist and the labourer of Lancashire ?' I am not sure that much of the capital of Lan cashire will not be ruined. I am not sure that very large numbers of its population will not have to remove to seek other employment, either in this or some other country. I am not one of those who underrate this great cala mity. On the contrary, I have scarcely i863. AMERICA. IV. 127 met with any man, — not more than half a dozen, — since this distress in our county began, who has been willing to measure the magnitude of this calamity according to the scale with which I have viewed it. But let us examine this question. The distress of Lancashire comes from a failure of the supply of cotton. The failure of the supply of cotton comes from the war in the United States. The war in the United States has ori ginated in the effort of the slaveholders of that country to break up what they themselves admit to be the freest and best government that ever existed, for the sole purpose of making per petual the institution of slavery. But if the South began the war, and created all the mischief, does it look reasonable that we should pat them on the back, and be their friends ? If they have destroyed cotton, or withheld it, shall we therefore take them to our bosoms ? I have a letter written by an agent in the City of Nashville, who had been accustomed to buy cotton there before the war, and who returned there imme diately after that city came into the possession of the Northern forces. He began his trade, and cotton came in. Not Union planters only, but Secession planters, began to bring in the produce of their plantations, and he had a fair chance of re-establishing his business ; but the moment this was discovered by the commanders of the Southern forces at some distance from the city, they issued the most peremptory orders that every boat-load of cotton on the rivers, every waggon-load upon the roads, and every car-load upon the railroads, that was leaving any plan tations for the purposes of sale, should be immediately destroyed. The result was, that the cotton trade was at once again put an end to, and I believe only to a very small extent has it been re opened, even to this hour. Then take the City of New Orleans, which, as you know, has been now for many months in the possession of the Northern forces. The Northern com manders there had issued announcements that any cotton sent down to New Orleans for exportation, even though it came from the most resolved friends of secession in the district, should still be safe. It might be purchased to ship to Europe, and the proceeds of that cotton might be returned, and the trade be re opened. But you have not found cotton come down to New Orleans, although its coming there under those terms would be of no particular advantage to the North. It has been withheld with this single object, to create in the manufac turing districts of France and England a state of suffering that might at last be come unbearable, and thus might com pel the Governments of those countries, in spite of all that international law may teach, in spite of all that morality may enjoin upon them, to take sides with the South, and go to war with the North for the sake of liberating whatever cotton there is now in the plantations of the Secession States. At this moment, such of you as read the City articles of the daily papers will see that a loan has been contracted for in the City, to the amount of three mil lions sterling, on behalf of the Southern Confederacy. It is not brought into the market by any firm with an English name ; but I am sorry to be obliged to believe that many Englishmen have taken portions of that loan. Now the one great object of that loan is this, to pay in this country for vessels which are being built — Alabamas — from which it is hoped that so much irritation will arise in the minds of the people of the Northern States, that England may be dragged into war to take sides with the South and with slavery. The South was natu rally hostile to England, because Eng land was hostile to slavery. Now the great hope of the insurrection has been from the beginning, that Englishmen would not have fortitude to bear the calamities which it has brought upon us ; but by some trick or by some acci dent we might be brought into a war with the North, and thereby give strength to the South. 128 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. I should hope that this question is now so plain that most Englishmen must understand it ; and least of all do I ex pect that the six millions of men in the United Kingdom who are not enfran chised can have any doubt upon it. Their instincts are always right in the main, and if they get the facts and infor mation, I can rely on their influence being thrown into the right scale. I wish I could state what would be as satisfac tory to myself with regard to some others. There may be men outside, there are men sitting amongst your legis lators, who will build and equip corsair ships to prey upon the commerce of a friendly power, — who will disregard the laws and the honour of their countiy, — ¦ who will trample on the Proclamation of their sovereign, — and who, for the sake of the glittering profit which sometimes waits on crime, are content to cover them selves with everlasting infamy. There may be men, too — rich men — in this city of London, who will buy in the slave-owners' loan, and who, for the chance of more gain than honest dealing will afford them, will help a conspiracy whose fundamental institution, whose comer-stone, is declared to be felony, and infamous by the statutes of their country. I speak not to these men — I leave them to their conscience in that hour which comes to all of us, when conscience speaks and the soul is no longer deaf to her voice. I speak rather to you, the working men of London, the representa tives, as you are here to-night, of the feelings and the interests of the millions who cannot hear my voice. I wish you to be true to yourselves. Dynasties may fall, aristocracies may perish, privilege will vanish into the dim past ; but you, your children, and your children's children, will remain, and from you the English people will 'be continued to suc ceeding generations. You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves. You strive for it in many ways. Do not then give the hand of fellowship to the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen, and do not, I beseech you, bring down a curse upon your cause which no after- penitence can ever lift from it. You will not do this. I have faith in you. Impartial history will tell that, when your statesman were hostile or coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your press — which ought to have instructed and defended — was mainly written to betray, the fate of a continent and of its vast population being in peril, you clung to freedom with an unfaltering trust that God in His in finite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all His children. -:— oSgx^ic— :- AMERICA. v. LONDON, JUNE 16, 1863. [On June 16, 1863, a public meeting was held at the London Tavern, at the instance of the Union and Emancipation Society, in order to hear an address from Mr. M. D. Conway, of Eastern Virginia. Mr. Bright was in the Chair.] If we look back a little over two years — two years and a half — when the question of secession was first raised in a practical shape, I think we shall be able to remember that, when the news first arrived in England, there was but one opinion with regard to it — that every man condemned the folly and the wickedness of the South, and pro tested against their plea that they had any grievance which justified them in revolt — and every man hoped that some mode might be discovered by which the terrible calamity of war might be avoided. For a time, many thought that there would be no war. Whilst the reins were slipping from the hands — the too feeble hands — of Mr. Buchanan into the grasp of President Lincoln, there was a moment when men thought that we were about to see the wonderful ex ample of a great question, which in all other countries would have involved a war, settled perhaps by moderation — some moderation on one side, and some concession on the other; and so long as men believed that there would be no war, so long everybody condemned the South. We were afraid of a war in America, because we knew that one of the great industries of our countiy de pended upon the continuous reception of its raw material from the Southern States. But it was a folly — it was a gross absurdity — for any man to believe, with the history of the world before him, that the people of the Northern States, twenty millions, with their free Government, would for one moment sit down satisfied with the dismemberment of their country, and make no answer to the war which had been commenced by the South. I speak not in justification of war. I am only treating this question upon principles which are almost universally acknowledged throughout the world, and by an overwhelming majority even of those men who accept the Christian religion ; and it is only upon those prin ciples, so almost universally acknow ledged, and acknowledged as much in this country as anywhere else — it is only just that we should judge the United States upon those principles 13° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE l6, upon which we in this countiy would be likely to act. But the North did not yield to the dismemberment of their country, and they did not allow a conspiracy of Southern politicians and slaveholders to seize their forts and arsenals without preparing for resistance. Then, when the people of England found that the North were about to resist, and that war was inevitable, they turned their eyes from the South, which was the beginner of the war, and looked to the North, saying that, if the North would not resist, there could be no war, and then we should get our cotton, and trade would go on as before; and therefore, from that hour to this, not a few persons in this country, who at first condemned the South, have been incessant in their condemnation of the North. Now, I believe this is a fair state ment of the feeling which prevailed when the first news of secession arrived, and of the change of opinion which took place in a few weeks, when it was found that, by the resolution of the North to maintain the integrity of their country, war, and civil war, was un avoidable. The trade interests of the country affected our opinion ; and I fear did then prevent, and have since prevented, our doing justice to the people of the North. Now I am going to transport you, in mind, to Lancashire, and the interests of Lancashire, which, after all, are the interests of the whole United Kingdom, and clearly of not a few in this metro polis. What was the condition of our greatest manufacturing industry before the war, and before secession had been practically attempted? It was this: that almost ninety per cent, of all our cotton came from the Southern States of the American Union, and was, at least nine-tenths of it, the produce of the uncompensated labour of the negro. Everybody knew that we were carry ing on a prodigious industry upon a most insecure foundation; and it was the commonest thing in the world for men who were discussing the present and the future of the cotton trade, whether in Parliament or out of it, to point to the existence of slavery in the United States of America as the one dangerous thing in connection with that great trade; and it was one of the reasons which stimulated me on several occasions to urge upon the Government of this country to improve the Govern ment of India, and to give us a chance of receiving a considerable portion of our supply from India, so that we might not be left in absolute want when the calamity occurred, which all thoughtful men knew must some day come, in the United States. Now, I maintain that with a supply of cotton mainly derived from the Southern States, and raised by slave labour, two things are indisputable: first, that the supply must always be insufficient; and second, that it must always be insecure. Perhaps many of you are not aware that in the United States — I am speaking of the Slave States, and the cotton-growing States— the quantity of land which is cultivated for cotton is a mere garden, a mere plot, in comparison with the whole of the cotton region. I speak from the authority of a report lately pre sented to the Boston Chamber of Com merce, containing much important in formation on this question ; and I believe that the whole acreage, or the whole breadth of the land on which cotton is grown in America, does not exceed ten thousand square miles — that is, a space one hundred miles long and one hundred miles broad, or the size of two of our largest counties in England ; but the land of the ten chief cotton- producing States is sixty times as much as that, being, I believe, about twelve times the size of England and Wales. It cannot be, therefore, because there has not been land enough that we have not in former years had cotton enough ; it cannot be that there has not been a demand for the produce of the land, for the demand has constantly outstripped the supply ; it has not been because the i863. AMERICA. V. 131 price has not been sufficient, for, as is well known, the price has been much higher of late years, and the profit to the planter much greater; and yet, notwithstanding the land and the de mand, and the price and die profit, the supply of cotton has not been sufficient for the wants of the spinners and the manufacturers of the world, and for the wants of civilization. The particular facts with regard to this I need not, perhaps, enter into; but I find, if I compare the prices of cotton in Liverpool from 1856 to i860 with the prices from 1841 to 1845, that every pound of cotton brought from America and sold in Liverpool fetched in the last five years more than twenty per cent, in excess of what it did in the former five years, notwith standing that we were every year in greater difficulties through finding our supply of cotton insufficient. But what was the reason that we did not get enough ? It was because there was not labour enough in the Southern States. You see every day in the news papers that there are four millions of slaves, but of those four millions of slaves some are growing tobacco, some rice, and some sugar; a very large number are employed in domestic servi tude, and a large number in factories, mechanical operations, and business in towns; and there remain only about one million negroes, or only one-quarter of the whole number, who are regularly engaged in the cultivation of cotton. Now, you will see that the production of cotton and its continued increase must depend upon the constantly increasing productiveness of the labour of those one million negroes, and on the natural in crease of population from them. ' Well, the increase of the population of the slaves in the United States is rather less than two and a-half per cent, per annum, and the increase on the million will be about twenty-five thousand a-year ; and the increased production of cotton from that increased amount of labour consisting of twenty-five thou sand more negroes every year will pro bably never exceed — I believe it has not reached — one hundred and fifty thousand bales per annum. The exact facts with regard to this are these : that in the ten years from 1841 to 1850 the average crop was 2,173,000 bales, and in the ten years from 1851 to i860 it was 3,252,000, being an increase of 1,079,000 bales in the ten years, or only about 100,000 bales of increase per annum. I have shown that the increase of pro duction must depend upon the increase of labour, because every other element is in abundance — soil, climate, and so forth. (A Voice : ' How about sugar ?') A Gentleman asks about sugar. If in any particular year there was an extra vagant profit upon cotton, there might be, and there probably would be, some abstraction of labour from the cultivation of tobacco, and rice, and sugar, in order to apply it to cotton, and a larger tem porary increase of growth might take place; but I have given you the facts with regard to the last twenty years, and I think you will see that my statement is correct.Now, can this be remedied under slavery ? I will show you how it can not. And first of all, everybody who is acquainted with American affairs knows that there is not very much migration of the population of the Northern States into the Southern States to engage in the ordinary occupations of agricultural labour. Labour is not honourable and is not honoured in the South, and there fore free labourers from the North are not likely to go South. Again, of all the emigration from this country — amounting as it did, in the fifteen years from 1846 to i860, to two millions five hundred thousand persons, being equal to the whole of the population of this great city — a mere trifle went South and settled there to pursue the occupation of agriculture; they remained in the North, where labour is honourable and honoured. Whence, then, could the planters of the South receive their increasing labour? Only from the slave-ship and the coast of Africa. But, fortunately for the 9—2 132 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 1 6, world, the United States' Government ¦has never yet become so prostrate under the heel of the slave-owner as to consent to the reopening of the slave-trade. Therefore the. Southern planter was in this unfortunate position : he could not tempt, perhaps he did not want, free labourers from the North ; he could not tempt, perhaps he did not want, free labourers from Europe ; and if he did want, -he was not permitted to fetch slave labour from Africa. Well, that being so, we arrive at this conclusion — that whilst the cultivation of cotton was performed by slave labour, you were shut up for your hope of increased growth to the small increase that was possible with the increase of two and a half per cent, per annum in the popu lation of the slaves, about one million in number, that have been regularly employed in the cultivation of cotton. Then, if the growth was thus insuffi cient — and I as one connected with the trade can speak very clearly upon that point — I ask you whether the production and the supply were not necessarily in secure by reason of the institution of slavery? It was perilous within the Union. In this country we made one mistake in our forecast of this question : we did not believe that the South would commit suicide ; we thought it possible that the slaves might revolt. They might revolt, but their subjugation was inevit able, because the whole power of the Union was pledged to the maintenance of order in every part of its dominions. But if there be men who think that the cotton trade would be safer if the South were an independent State, with slavery established there in permanence, they greatly mistake ; because, what ever was the danger of revolt in the Southern States whilst the Union was complete, the possibility of revolt and the possibility of success would surely be greatly increased if the North were separate from the South, and the negro had only his Southern master, and not the Northern power, to contend against. But I believe there is little danger of revolt, and no possibility of success. When the revolt took place in the island of St. Domingo, the blacks were far superior in numbers to the whites. In the Southern States it is not so. Igno rant, degraded, without organization, without arms, and scarcely with any faint hope of freedom for ever, except the enthusiastic hope which they have when they believe that God will some day stretch out His arm for their deliver ance — I say that under these circum stances, to my mind, there was no reason able expectation of revolt, and that they had no expectation whatever of success in any attempt to gain their liberty by force of arms. But now we are in a different position. Slavery itself has chosen its own issue, and has chosen its own field. Slavery — and when I say slavery, I mean the slave power — has not trusted to the future ; but it has rushed into the battle field to settle this great question ; and having chosen war, it is from day to day sinking to inevitable ruin under it. Now, if we are agreed — and I am keeping you still to Lancashire and to its interests for a moment longer — that this vast in dustry with all its interests of capital and labour has been standing on a menacing volcano) is it not possible that hereafter it may be placed upon a rock which no thing can disturb ? Imagine — what of course some people will say I have no right to imagine — imagine the war over, the Union re stored and slavery abolished — does any man suppose that there would afterwards be in the South one single negro fewer than there are at present ? On the contrary, I believe there would be more. I believe there is many a negro in the Northern States, and even in Canada, who, if the lash, and the chain, and the branding-iron, and the despotism against which even he dared not com plain, were abolished for ever, would turn his face to the sunny lands of the South, and would find himself happier and more useful there than he can be in a more Northern clime. More than this, there would be a mi gration from the North to the South. i863. AMERICA. V. '33 You do not suppose that those beautiful States, those regions than which earth offers nothing to man more fertile and more lovely, are shunned by the enter prising population of the North because they like the rigours of a Northern winter and the greater changeableness of the Northern seasons ? Once abolish slavery in the South, and the whole of the country will be open to the enter prise and to the industry of all. And more than that, when you find that, only the other day, not fewer than four thou sand emigrants, most of them from the United Kingdom, landed in one day in the city of New York, do you suppose that all those men would go north and west at once ? Would not some of them turn their faces southwards, and seek the clime of the sun, which is so grateful to all men; where they would find a soil more fertile, rivers more abundant, and everything that Nature offers more pro fusely given, but from which they are now shut out by the accursed power which slavery exerts ? With freedom you would have a gradual filling up of the wildernesses of the Southern States ; you would have there, not population only, but capital, and industry, and roads, and schools, and everything which tends to produce growth, and wealth, and prosperity. I maintain — and I believe my opinion will be supported by all those men who are most conversant with American af fairs — that, with slavery abolished, with freedom firmly established in the South, you would find in ten years to come a rapid increase in the growth of cotton ; and not only would its growth be rapid, but its permanent increase would be secured. I said that I was interested in this great question of cotton. I come from Sie midst of the great cotton industry of Lancashire; much the largest por tion of anything I have in the world depends upon it; not a little of it is now utterly valueless, during the con tinuance of this war. My neighbours, by thousands and scores of thousands, are suffering, more or less, as I am suf fering; and many of them, as you know — more than a quarter of a million of them — have been driven from a sub sistence gained by their honourable labour to the extremest poverty, and to a dependence upon the charity of their fellow-countrymen. My interest is the interest of all the population. My interest is against a mere enthu siasm, a mere sentiment, a mere vision ary fancy of freedom as against slavery. I am speaking now as a matter of busi ness. I am glad when matters of busi ness go straight with matters of high sentiment and morality, and from this platform I declare my solemn convic tion that there is no greater enemy to Lancashire, to its capital and to its labour, than the man who wishes the cotton agriculture of the Southern States to be continued under the conditions of slave labour. One word more upon another branch of the question, and I have done. I would turn for a moment from com merce to politics. I believe that our true commercial interests in this countiy are very much in harmony with what I think ought to be our true political sympathies. There is no people in the world, I think, that more fully and en tirely accepts the theory that one nation acts very much upon the character and upon the career of another, than Eng land ; for our newspapers and our statesmen, our writers and our speakers of every class, are constantly telling us of the wonderful influence which Eng lish constitutional government and Eng lish freedom have on the position and career of every nation in Europe. I am not about to deny that some such in fluence, and occasionally, I believe, a beneficent influence, is thus exerted ; but if we exert any influence upon Eu rope — and we pride ourselves upon it — perhaps it will not be a humiliation to admit that we feel some influence ex erted upon us by the great American Republic. American freedom acts upon England, and there is nothing that is better known, at the west end of this great city — from which I have just 134 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. come — than the influence that has been, and nothing more feared than the in fluence that may be, exerted by the United States upon this country. We all of us know that there has been a great effect produced in Eng land by the career of the United States. An emigration of three or four millions of persons from the United Kingdom, during the last forty years, has bound us to them by thousands of family ties, and therefore it follows that whatever there is that is good, and whatever there is that is free in America, which we have not, we know something about, and gradually may begin to wish for, and some day may insist upon having. And when I speak of 'us,' I mean the people of this country. When I am asserting the fact that the people of England have a great interest in the well-being of the American Republic, I mean the people of England. I do not speak of the wearers of crowns or of coronets, but of the twenty millions of people in this country who live on their labour, and who, having no votes, are not counted in our political census, but without whom there could be no British nation at all. I say that these have an interest, almost as great and direct as though they were living in Massachu setts or New York, in the tremendous struggle for freedom which is now shak ing the whole North American Con tinent. During the last two years there has been much said, and much written, and some things done in this country, which are calculated to gain us the hate of both sections of the American Union. I believe that a course of policy might have been taken by the English press, and by the English Government, and by what are called the influential classes in England, that would have bound them to our hearts and us to their hearts. I speak of the twenty millions of the Free North. I believe we might have been so thoroughly united with that people, that all remembrance of the war of the Revolution and of the war of 18 1 2 would have been oblite rated, and we should have been in heart and spirit for all time forth but one nation. I can only hope that, as time passes, and our people become better informed, they will be more just, and that ill feeling of every kind will pass away ; that in future all who love freedom here will hold converse with all who love freedom there, and that the two nations, separated as they are by the ocean, come as they are, notwithstanding, of one stock, may be in future time united in soul, and may work together for the advancement of the liberties and the happiness of mankind. '"^»(S-. ""Sw."" AMERICA. VI. MR. ROEBUCK'S MOTION FOR RECOGNITION OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 30, 1863. I wtll not attempt to follow the noble Lord in the laboured attack which he has made upon the Treasury Bench, for these two reasons : — that he did not appear to me very much to un derstand what it was he was condemn ing them for ; and, again, I am not in the habit of defending Gentlemen who sit on that bench. I will address myself to the question before the House, which I think the House generally feels to be very important, although I am quite satisfied that they do not feel it to be a practical one. Neither do I think that the House will be disposed to take any course in support of the hon. Gen tleman who introduced the resolution now before us. We sometimes are engaged in dis cussions, and have great difficulty to know what we are about ; but the hon. Gentleman left us in no kind of doubt when he sat down. He proposed a re solution, in words which, under certain circumstances and addressed to certain parties, might end in offensive or in jurious consequences. Taken in con nection with his character, and with the speech he has made to-night, and with the speech he has recently made else where on this subject, I may say that he would have come to about the same conclusion if he had proposed to ad dress the Crown inviting the Queen to declare war against the United States of America. The Chancellor of the Ex chequer, who is known not to be very zealous in the particular line of opinion that I have adopted, addressed the hon. Gentleman in the smoothest language possible, but still he was obliged to charge him with the tone of bitter hos tility which marked his speech. On a recent occasion the hon. Mem ber addressed some members of his constituency — I do not mean in his last speech, I mean in the speech in August last year — in which he entered upon a course of prophecy which, like most prophecies in our day, does not happen to come true. But he said then what he said to-night, that the American people and Government were overbear ing. He did not tell his constituents that the Government of the United States had, almost during the whole of his lifetime, been conducted by his friends of the South. He said that, if they were divided, they would not be able to bully the whole world ; and he made use of these expressions : ' The North will never be our friends ; of the South you can make friends, — they are Englishmen, — they are not the scum and refuse of the world.' Mr. Roebuck : ' Allow me to correct 136 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 3P, that statement. What I said I now state to the House, that the men of the South were Englishmen, but that the army of the North was composed of the scum of Europe.' Mr. Bright : I take, of course, that explanation of the hon. and learned Gentleman, with this explanation from me, that there is not, so far as I can find, any mention near that paragraph, and I think there is not in the speech a single word, about the army. Mr. Roebuck : ' I assure you I said that.' Mr. Bright: Then I take it for granted that the hon. and learned Gentleman said that, or that if he said what I have read he greatly regrets it. Mr. Roebuck : ' No, I did not say it.' Mr. Bright: The hon. and learned Gentleman in his resolution speaks of other powers. But he has unceremo niously got rid of all the powers but France, and he comes here to-night with a story of an interview with a man whom he describes as the great ruler of France — tells us of a conversation with him — asks us to accept the lead of the Emperor of the French on, I will undertake to say, one of the greatest questions that ever was submitted to the British Parliament. But it is not long since the hon. and learned Gentle man held very different language. I recollect in this House, only about two years ago, that the hon. and learned Gentleman said : ' I hope I may be permitted to express in respectful terms my opinion, even though it should affect so great a potentate as the Emperor of the French. I have no faith in the Emperor of the French.' On another occasion the hon. and learned Gentle man said, — not, I believe, in this House, — ' I am still of opinion that we have nothing but animosity and bad faith to look for from the French Emperor.' And he went on to say that still, though he had been laughed at, he adopted the patriotic character of ' Tear-'em,' and was still at his post. And when the hon. and learned Gentleman came back, I think from his expedition to Cherbourg, does the House recollect the language he used on that occasion — language which, if it expressed the sentiments which he felt, at least I think he might have been content to have withheld ? If I am not mistaken, referring to the salutation between the Emperor of the French and the Queen of these kingdoms, he said, ' When I saw his perjured lips touch that hallowed cheek.' And now, Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman has been to Paris, introduced there by the hon. Member for Sunderland, and he has sought to become as it were in the palace of the French Emperor a co-conspirator with him to drag this countiy into a policy which I maintain is as hostile to its interests as it would be degrading to its honour. But then the high contracting parties, I suspect, are not agreed, because I will say this in justice to the French Em peror, that there has never come from him in public, nor from any one of his Ministers, nor is there anything to be found in what they have written, that is tinctured in the smallest degree with that bitter hostility which the hon. and learned Gentleman has constantly ex hibited to the United States of America and their people. France, if not wise in this matter, is at least not unfriendly. The hon. and learned Member, in my opinion — indeed I am sure — is not friendly, and I believe he is not wise. But now, on this subject, without speaking disrespectfully of the great potentate who has taken the hon. and learned Gentleman into his confidence, I must say that the Emperor runs the risk of being far too much represented in this House. We have now two — I will not call them envoys extraordinary, but most extraordinary. And, if report speaks true, even they are not all. The hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Hennessy)— I do not see him in his place — came back the other day from Paris, and there were whispers that he had seen the great ruler of France, and that he could tell everybody in the most confidential manner that the Emperor i863. AMERICA. VI. 137 was ready to make a spring at Russia for the sake of delivering Poland, and that he only waited for a word from the Prime Minister of England. I do not understand the policy of the Emperor if these new Ministers of his tell the truth. For, Sir, if one Gentle man says that he is about to make war with Russia, and another that he is about to make war with America, I am disposed to look at what he is already doing. I find that he is holding Rome against the opinion of all Italy. He is conquering Mexico by painful steps, every footstep marked by devastation and blood. He is warring, in some desultory manner, in China, and for aught I know he may be about to do it in Japan. I say that, if he is to en gage, at the same time, in dismember ing the greatest Eastern Empire and the great Western Republic, he has a greater ambition than Louis XIV, a greater daring than the first of his name ; and that, if he endeavours to grasp these great transactions, his dy nasty may fall and be buried in the rains of his own ambition. I can say only one sentence upon the question to which the noble Lord has directed so much attention. I under stand that we have not heard all the story from Paris, and further, that it is not at all remarkable, seeing that the secret has been confided to two persons, that we have not heard it correctly. I saw my hon. Friend, the Member for Sunderland, near me, and his face un derwent remarkable contortions during the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I felt perfectly satisfied that he did not agree with what his colleague was saying. I am told there is in existence a little memorandum which contains an account of what was said and done at that interview in Paris; and before the discussion closes we shall no doubt have that memorandum pro duced, and from it know how far these two gentlemen are agreed. I now come to the proposition which the hon. and learned Gentleman has submitted to the House, and which he has already submitted to a meeting of his constituents at Sheffield. At that meet ing, on the 27th of May, the hon. and learned Gentleman used these words : ' What I have to consider is, what are the interests of England : what is for her interests I believe to be for the in terests of the world.' Now, leaving out of consideration the latter part of that statement, if the hon. and learned Gentleman will keep to the first part of it, then what we have now to consider in this question is, what is for the in terest of England. But the hon. and learned Gentleman has put it to-night in almost as offensive a way as he did before at Sheffield, and has said that the United States would not bully the world if they were divided and sub divided ; for he went so far as to con template division into more than two independent sections. I say that the whole of his case rests upon a miserable jealousy of the United States, or on what I may term a base' fear. It is a fear which appears to me just as groundless as any of those panics by which the hon. and learned Gentleman has attempted to frighten the country. There never was a State in the world which was less capable of aggression with regard to Europe than the United States of America. I speak of its go vernment, of its confederation, of the peculiarities of its organization ; for the House will agree with me, that nothing is more peculiar than the fact of the great power which the separate States, both of the North and South, exercise upon the policy and course of the countiy. I will undertake to say, that, unless in a question of overwhelming magnitude, which would be able to unite any people, it would be utterly hopeless to expect that all the States of the American Union would join to gether to support the central Govern ment in any plan of aggression on Eng land or any other country of Europe. Besides, nothing can be more certain than this, that the Government which is now in power, and the party which have elected Mr. Lincoln to office, is a 138 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 30, moral and peaceable party, which has been above all things anxious to cul tivate the best possible state of feeling with regard to England. The hon. and learned Gentleman, of all men, ought not to entertain this fear of United States' aggression, for he is always boasting of his readiness to come into the field himself. I grant that it would be a great necessity indeed which would justify a conscription in calling out the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I say he ought to consider well before he spreads these alarms among the people. For the sake of this miserable jealousy, and that he may help to break up a friendly nation, he would depart from the usages of nations, and create an everlasting breach between the people of England and the people of the United States of America. He would do more ; and, notwithstanding what he has said to-night, I may put this as my strongest argument against his case — he would throw the weight of Eng land into the scale in favour of the cause of slavery. I want to show the hon. and learned Gentleman that England is not in terested in the course he proposes we should take ; and when I speak of in terests, I mean the commercial interests, the political interests, and the moral interests of the country. And first, with regard to the supply of cotton, in which the noble Lord the Member for Stamford takes such a prodigious in terest. I must explain to the noble Lord that I know a little about cotton. I happen to have been engaged in that business, — not all my life, for the noble Lord has seen me here for twenty years, — but my interests have been in it ; and at this moment the firm of which I am a member have no less than six mills, which have been at a stand for nearly a year, owing to the impos sibility of working under the present conditions of the supply of cotton. I live among a people who live by this trade ; and there is no man in England who has a more direct interest in it than I have. Before the war, the sup ply of cotton was little and costly, and every year it was becoming more costly, for the supply did not keep pace with the demand. The point that I am about to argue is this : I believe that the war which is now raging in America is more likely to abolish slavery than not, and more likely to abolish it than any other thing that can be proposed in the world. I . regret very much that the pride and passion of men are such as to justify me in making this statement. The supply of cotton under slavery must always be insecure. The House felt so in past years ; for at my recommendation they appointed a committee, and but for the folly of a foolish Minister they would have appointed a special commission to India at my request. Is there any gentleman in this House who will not agree with me in this, — that it would be far better for our great Lancashire industry that our supply of cotton should be grown by free labour than by slave labour ? Before the war, the whole number of negroes engaged in the production of cotton was about one million, — that is, about a fourth of the whole of the negroes in the Slave States. The an nual increase in the number of negroes growing cotton was about twenty-five thousand, — only two and a-half per cent. It was impossible for the Southern States to keep up their growth of sugar, rice, tobacco, and their ordinary slave productions, and at the same time to in crease the growth of cotton more than at a rate corresponding with the annual increase of negroes. Therefore you will find that the quantity of cotton grown, taking ten years together, in creased only at the rate of about one hundred thousand bales a-year. But that was nothing like the quantity which we required. That supply could not be increased, because the South did not cultivate more than probably one and a-half per cent, of the land which was capable of cultivation for cotton. The great bulk of the land in the Southern States is uncultivated. Ten i863. AMERICA. VI. 159 thousand square miles are appropriated to the cultivation of cotton; but there are six hundred thousand square miles, or sixty times as much land, which is capable of being cultivated for cotton. It was, however, impossible that the land should be so cultivated, because, although you had climate and sun, you had no labour. The institution of slavery forbade free-labour men in the North to come to the South ; and every emigrant that landed in New York from Europe knew that the Slave States were no States for him, and therefore he went North or West. The laws of the United States, the sentiments ' of Eu rope and of the world, being against any opening of the slave-trade, the planters of the South were shut up, and the annual increase in the supply of cotton could increase only in the same pro portion as the annual increase in the number of their negroes. There is only one other point with regard to that matter which is worth mentioning. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Sheffield will understand it, although on some points he seems to be peculiarly dark. If a planter in the Southern States wanted to grow one thousand bales of cotton a-year, he would require about two hundred negroes. Taking them at five hundred dollars, or one hundred pounds each, which is not more than half the price of a first-class hand, the cost of the two hundred would be twenty thousand pounds. To grow one thousand bales of cotton a-year you require not only to possess an estate, machinery, tools, and other things ne cessary to carry on the cotton-growing business, but you must find a capital of twenty thousand pounds to buy the actual labourers by whom the planta tion is to be worked ; and therefore, as every gentleman will see at once, this great trade, to a large extent, was shut up in the hands of men who were re quired to be richer than would be ne cessary if slavery did not exist. Thus the plantation business to a large extent became a monopoly, and therefore even on that account the pro duction of cotton was constantly limited and controlled. I was speaking to a gentleman the other day from Missis sippi. I believe no man in America or in England is more acquainted with the facts of this case. He has been for many years a Senator from the State of Mississippi. He told me that every one of these facts was true, and said, ' I have no doubt whatever that in ten years after freedom in the South, or after freedom in conjunction with the North, the production of cotton will be doubled, and cotton will be for warded to the consumers of the world at a much less price than we have had it for many years past.' I shall turn for a moment to the political interest, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman paid much more attention than to the commercial. The more I consider the course of this war, the more I come to the conclusion that it is improbable in future that the United States will be broken into sepa rate republics. I do not come to the conclusion that the North will conquer the South. But I think the conclusion to which I am more disposed to come now than at any time since the breaking out of the war is this, — that if a sepa ration should occur for a time, still the interest, the sympathies, the sentiments, the necessities of the whole continent, and its ambition also, which, as hon. Gentlemen have mentioned, seems to some people to be a necessity, render it highly probable that the continent would still be united under one central Government. I may be quite mistaken. I do not express that opinion with any more confidence than hon. Gentlemen have expressed theirs in favour of a permanent dissolution ; but now is not this possible, — that the Union may be again formed on the basis of the South ? There are persons who think that possible. I hope it is not, but we cannot say that it is absolusely im possible. Is it not possible that the Northern Government may be baffled in their 140 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 30, military operations ? Is it not possible that, by their own incapacity, they may be humiliated before their own people ? And is it not even possible that the party which you please to call the Peace party in the North, but which is in no sense a peace party, should unite with the South, and that the Union should be reconstituted on the basis of Southern opinions and of the Southern social system? Is it not possible, for example, that the South- em people, and those in their favour, should appeal to the Irish population of America against the negroes, between whom there has been little sympathy and little respect ; and is it not possible they should appeal to the commercial classes of the North — and the rich commercial classes in ail countries, from the uncertainty of their posses sions and the fluctuation of their in terests, are rendered always timid and very often corrupt — is it not possible, I say, that they might prefer the union of their whole country upon the basis of the South, rather than that union which many Members of this House look upon with so much apprehension ? If that should ever take place — but I believe, with my hon. Friend below me (Mr. Forster) , in the moral government of the world, and therefore I cannot believe that it will take place; but if it were to take place, with their great armies, and with their great navy, and their almost unlimited power, they might seek to drive England out of Canada, France out of Mexico, and whatever nations are interested in them out of the islands of the West Indies ; and you might then have a great State built upon slavery and war, instead of that free State to which I look, built up upon an educated people, upon general freedom, and upon morality in government. Now there is one more point to which the hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me if I allude — he does not appear to me to think it of great im portance — and that is, the morality of this question. The right hon. Gentle man the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the hon. Gentleman who spoke from the bench behind — and I think the noble Lord, if I am not mistaken — referred to the carnage which is occa sioned by this lamentable strife. Well, carnage, I presume, is the accompani ment of all war. Two years ago the press of London ridiculed very much the battles of the United States, in which nobody was killed and few were hurt. There was a time when I stood up in this House, and pointed out the dreadful horrors of war. There was a war waged by this country in the Crimea ; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with an uneasy conscience, is con stantly striving to defend that strug gle. That war — for it lasted about the same time that the American war has lasted — at least destroyed as many lives as are estimated to have been destroyed in the United States. My hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, who, I think, is not in the House, made a speech in Scotland some time last year, in which he gave the numbers which were lost by Russia in that war. An hon. Friend near me observes, that some people do not reckon the Russians for anything. I say, if you will add the Russians to the English, and the two to the French, and the three to the Sardinians, and the four to the Turks, that more lives were lost in the invasion of the Crimea, in the two years that it lasted, than have been lost hitherto in the American war. That is no defence of the carnage of the American war ; but let hon. Gentlemen bear in mind that, when I protested against the carnage in the Crimea — for an object which few could compre hend and nobody can fairly explain — I was told that I was actuated by a morbid sentimentality. Well, if I am converted, if I view the mortality in war with less horror than I did then, it must be attributed to the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite and on the Treasury bench ; but the fact is, I view this carnage just as I viewed that, with only this difference, that while our i863. AMERICA. VI. 141 soldiers perished three thousand miles from home in a worthless and indefen sible cause, these men were on their own soil, and every man of them knew for what he enlisted and for what purpose he was to fight. Now, I will ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Ex chequer, and those who are of opinion with him on this question of slaughter in the American war — a slaughter which I hope there is no hon. Member here, and no person out of this House, that does not in his calm moments look upon with grief and horror — to consider what was the state of things before the war. It was this: that every year in the Slave States of America there were one hundred and fifty thousand children born into the world — bom with the badge and the doom of slavery — born to the liability by law, and by custom, and by the devilish cupidity of man — to the lash and to the chain and to the branding- iron, and to be taken from their families and carried they know not where. I want to know whether you feel as I feel upon this question. When I can get down to my home from this House, I find half a dozen little children playing upon my hearth. How many Members are there who can say with me, that the most innocent, the most pure, the most holy joy which in their past years they have felt, or in their future years they have hoped for, has not arisen from contact and association with our pre cious children ? Well, then, if that be so — if,' when the hand of Death takes one of those flowers from our dwelling, our heart is overwhelmed with sorrow and our household is covered with gloom ; what would it be if our chil dren were brought up to this infernal system — one hundred and fifty thousand of them every year brought into the world in these Slave States, amongst these ' gentlemen,' amongst this ' chi valry,' amongst these men that we can make our friends ? Do you forget the thousand-fold griefs and the countless agonies which belonged to the silent conflict of slavery before the war began ? It is all very well for the hon._ and learned Gentleman to tell me, to tell this House— he will not tell the country with any satisfaction to it — that slavery, after all, is not so bad a thing. The brother of my hon. Friend the Member for South Durham told me that in North Carolina he himself saw a woman whose every child, ten in number, had been sold when they grew up to the age at which they would fetch a price to their master. I have not heard a word to-night of another matter — the Proclamation of the President of the United States. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke somewhere in the countiy, and he had not the magnanimity to abstain from a statement which I was going to say he must have known had no real founda tion. I can make all allowance for the passion — and I was going to say the malice— but I will say the ill-will of the hon. and learned Gentleman ; but I make no allowance for his ignorance. I make no allowance for that, because if he is ignorant it is his own fault, for God has given him an intellect which ought to keep him from ignorance on a question. of this magnitude. I now take that Proclamation. What do you pro pose to do ? You propose by your reso lution to help the South, if possible, to gain and sustain its independence. No body doubts that. The hon. and learned Gentleman will not deny it. But what becomes of the Proclamation ? I should like to ask any lawyer in what light we stand as regards that Proclamation 1 To us there is only one country in what was called the United States; there is only one President, there is only one general Legislature, there is only one law ; and if that Proclamation be law ful anywhere, we are not in a condition to deny its legality, because at present we know no President Davis, nor do we know the men who are about him. We have our Consuls in the South, but recognizing only one Legislature, one President, one law. So far as we are concerned, that Proclamation is a legal and effective document. 142 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 30, I want to know, to ask you, the House of Commons, whether you have turned back to your own proceedings in 1834, and traced the praises which have been lavished upon you for thirty years by the great and good men of other countries, — and whether, after what you did at that time, you believe that you will meet the views of the thoughtful, moral, and religious people of England, when you propose to remit to slavery three millions of negroes in the Southern States, who in our views, and regarding the Proclamation of the only President of the United States as a legal document, are certainly and to all intents and purposes free ? [' Oh 1 '] The hon. and learned Gentleman may say ' Oh ! ' and shake his head lightly, and be scornful at this. He has ma naged to get rid of all those feelings under which all men, black and white, like to be free. He has talked of the cant and hypocrisy of these men. Was Wilberforce, was Clarkson, was Buxton, — I might run over the whole list, — were these men hypocrites, and had they nothing about them but cant ? I could state something about the family of my hon. Friend below me (Mr. Forster), which I almost fear to state in his presence; but his revered father — a man unsurpassed in character, not equalled by many in intellect, and approached by few in service — laid down his life in a Slave State in America, while carrying to the governors and legislatures of every Slave State the pro test of himself and his sect against the enormity of that odious system. In conclusion, Sir, I have only this to say, — that I wish to take a generous view of this question, — a view, I say, generous with regard to the people with whom we are in amity, whose Minister we receive here, and who receive our Minister in Washington. We see that the Government of the United States has for two years past been contending for its life, and we know that it is contending necessarily for human freedom. That Government affords the remarkable ex ample — offered for the first time in the history of the world — of a great Govern ment coming forward as the organized defender of law, freedom, and equality. Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite can not be so ill-informed as to say that the revolt of the Southern States is in favour of freedom and equality. In Europe often, and in some parts of America, when there has been insurrection, it has generally been of the suffering against the oppressor, and rarely has it been found, and not more commonly in our history than in the history of any other country, that the Government has stepped forward as the organized defender of freedom — of the wide and general free dom of those under its rule. With such a Government, in such a contest, with such a foe, the hon. and learned Gentle man the Member for Sheffield, who pro fesses to be more an Englishman than most Englishmen, asks us to throw into the scale against it the weight of the hostility of England. I have not said a word with regard to what may happen to England if we go into war with the United States. It will be a war upon the ocean, — every ship that belongs to the two nations will, as far as possible, be swept from the seas. But when the troubles in America are over, — be they ended by the restoration of the Union, or by sepa ration, — that great and free people, the most instructed in the world, — there is not an American to be found in the New England States who cannot read and write, and there are not three men in one hundred in the whole Northern States who cannot read and write, — and those who cannot read and write are those who have recently come from Europe, — I say the most instructed people in the world, and the most wealthy, — if you take the distribution of wealth among the whole people, — will have a wound in their hearts by your act which a century may not heal ; and the posterity of some of those who now hear my voice may look back with amazement, and I will say with lamenta tion, at the course which was taken by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and by i863. AMERICA. VI. M3 such hon. Members as may choose to follow his leading. [' No ! No ! '] I suppose the hon. Gentlemen who cry ' No ! ' will admit that we sometimes suffer from the errors of our ancestors. There are few persons who will not admit that, if their fathers had been wiser, their children would have been happier. We know the cause of this revolt, its purposes, and its aims. Those who made it have not left us in darkness respecting their intentions, but what they are to accomplish is still hidden from our sight ; and I will abstain now, as I have always abstained with regard to it, from predicting what is to come. I know what I hope for, — and what I shall rejoice in, — but I know nothing of future facts that will enable me to express a confident opinion. Whether it will give freedom to the race which white men have trampled in the dust, and whether the issue will purify a nation steeped in crimes committed against that race, is known only to the Supreme. In His hands are alike the breath of man and the life of States. I am willing to com mit to Him the issue of this dreaded contest; but I implore of Him, and I beseech this House, that my country may lift nor hand nor voice in aid of the most stupendous act of guilt that history has recorded in the annals of mankind. •-^~ IRELAND. I. MAYNOOTH GRANT. HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL i6, 1845. [On April 3rd Sir Robert Pfeel proposed a Resolution for the improvement of Maynooth College, the grant to consist of 261000/. per annum. It was suggested by some speakers, that the act would justify the endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood, and Lord John Russell asserted that such a plan would be a larger, more liberal, and more statesmanlike measure. Others objected to the grant on theological grounds, others for the reason that it was a step towards endowing another Church Establishment in Ireland. The Resolution was carried by 216 to 114. The debate on the Bill was resumed on April 10th, and was continued on April 14th and 16th. The second reading was carried on the- last day by 323 votes to 176; on May 2nd the Bill passed through Committee. It was opposed again on bringing up the Report, on May 5th, and was finally passed on May 21st, by 317 to 184. The Bill, after opposition, passed in the Lords on June 10th.] I am anxious to make a few obser vations on the principle on which I shall give my vote ; because I shall be obliged to pass into, the lobby along with a number of Members of the House from whose principles I entirely dissent ; and after the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Bandon, I think that any one who votes with him has need to ex plain why he votes on his side, for any thing more unlike the principles of the present day, more intolerant, or more insane with respect to the policy to be pursued towards Ireland, I have never heard; and I could not have believed that any man coming from that country could have used such language in address ing this House. I do not think that this question is to be looked at in a favour able or unfavourable light because of the party from which it comes. Some hon. Members have charged the right hon. Baronet with inconsistency, and have in some degree thrown the blame of his conduct on the measure which he has introduced. The right hon. Baronet has, from unfortunate circumstances, been connected in Opposition with a party of such a nature, that he could never promote any good measure whilst in power without being charged, and justly, with inconsistent conduct. But I will look at the measure as a measure by itself, and if it be a good measure I will vote for it as willingly, coming from the present Government, as if it came from the Government which preceded it. But I object to this measure on the ground that it is proposed to vote some of the public taxes for the puipose of maintaining an institution purely eccle siastical, and for the rearing and edii- 15° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL l6, eating of the priests of a particular sect. I am the more strongly against the Bill, because, from all that has been said on both sides of the House, and from all that I can learn from the public papers, and even from the organs of the Govern ment, I am convinced that there is no argument which has been used in defence of this measure, which would not be just as valid for the defence of further measures, not for the payment of Ca tholic priests of the College of Maynooth only, but for the payment of all the priests in Ireland or in England. I admit that the principles and the argu ments which have justified the original vote are good to some extent to justify this vote. The right hon. Baronet in his opening speech has stated that the principle was conceded, that it is but a matter of a few thousand pounds. But if the principle were conceded now, ten or twenty years hence some Prime Minister might stand 'up and state that in 1 795 the principle was conceded, and in 1845 that concession — or rather, that principle — was again sanctioned; and then, arguing from the two cases, it - would be easy to demonstrate that it was no violation of principle whatever to establish a new Church in Ireland, and add thereby to the monstrous evils which exist there now from the estab lishment of one in connection with the State. The right hon. Baronet has paid no great compliment to the Irish Catho lics in the possession of means and pro perty, when he has said that the 9,000/. now voted is just sufficient to damp the generosity of the peopleof that countiy. If 9,000/. were enough in some degree to check their generosity, I should think that a sum of 26,000/. is sufficient to destroy it altogether. When I consider that the Catholic gentry of Ireland pay no Income Tax and no Property Tax, and no Assessed Taxes, I do not think it would be a thing altogether impos sible, or to be unlooked for, that they should have supported an establishment for the rearing of priests to teach that religion to which they profess to be so much devoted. But the object of this measure was just as objectionable to me when I learned that it was intended by this vote to soothe the discontent which exists in' Ireland. I will look at the causes whence this discontent arises. Does it arise because the priests of Maynooth are now insufficiently clad or fed? I have always thought that it arose from the fact that one-third of the people are paupers — that almost all of them are not in regular employment at the very lowest rate of wages — and that the state of things amongst the bulk of the popu lation is most disastrous, and to be deplored; but I cannot for the life of me conceive how the grant of additional money to Maynooth is to give addi tional employment, or food, or clothing to the people of Ireland, or make them more satisfied with their condition. I can easily see how, by the granting of this sum, the Legislature may hear far less in future times of the sufferings and wrongs of the people of Ireland than they have heard heretofore; for they may discover than one large means of influence, possessed by those who had agitated for the redress of Irish wrongs, is to be found in the support which the Irish Catholic clergy has given to the various associations for carrying on political agitation; and the object of this Bill is to tame down those agitar tors — it is a sop given to the priests. It is hush-money given, that they may not proclaim to the whole country, to ' Europe, and to the world, the sufferings of the population to whom they ad minister the rites and the consolations of religion. I assert that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catho lics would thank you infinitely more if you were to wipe out that foul blot, than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had every thing Protestant — a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country ; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protes tant clique ; Protestant judges who have i845- IRELAND. I. 151 polluted the seats of justice; Protes tant magistrates, before whom the Ca tholic peasant could not hope for justice. They have not only Protestant, but ex terminating landlords, and more than that, a Protestant soldiery, who, at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant, even in the presence of his widowed mother. All these things are notorious ; I merely state them. I do not bring the proof of them : they are patent to all the world, and that man must have been unobservant indeed who is not perfectly convinced of their truth. The consequence of all this is, the extreme discontent of the Irish peo ple; and because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, and to wipe away that Pro testant Establishment which is the most disgraceful institution in Christendom ; the next thing is, that they should drive off the watch-dogs, if it be possible, and take from Mr. O'Connell and the Repeal Association that formidable or ganization which has been established throughout the whole countiy, through the sympathies of the Catholic priests being bound up with the interests of the people. Their object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people, and to give them more Latin and Greek. The ob ject is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those of Suffolk and Dorset shire. The object is, that when the horizon is brightened every night with incendiary fires, no priest of the paid Establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people against whom he is living; and when the population is starving, and pauperised by thousands, as in the southern parts of England, the priests shall not unite themselves with any association for the purpose of wresting from an oppressive Govern ment those rights to which the people have a claim. I am altogether against this system for any purpose, under any circum stances, at any time whatever. No thing can be, more disastrous to the best interests of the community, nor more dangerous to religion itself. If the Government wants to make die priests of Ireland as useless for all practical purposes as the paid priests of their own Establishment, they should not give diem 26,000/. merely, but as much as they can persuade the House to agree to. Ireland is suffer ing, not from the want of another Church, but rather because she already has one Church too many ; for with the present Church, having a small community,' overpaid ministers, a costly Establishment, and little work, it is quite impossible to have peace and content in that country. If you give the Catholic priests a portion of the public funds, as the Government has given the Regium Donum to the Pres byterians of the North, they will unite with the Church as the Presbyterians did against any attempt to overturn the old system of Church and State alliance in that country. The experience of State Churches is not of a character to warrant the House in going further in that direction. In this country there is a State Church, and I do not deny that there are many excellent ministers in it ; but from time immemorial it has been characterized by a most deplorable and disastrous spirit of persecution, which even at this hour still exists ; for that Church is now persecuting a poor shoemaker at Cambridge for non-payment of Church rates, and pursuing him from court to court. That Church has been upheld as a bulwark against Catholicism, and yet all the errors of Catholicism find a home and a hearty welcome there. In Lancashire and Yorkshire, and in other counties, that Church is found to be too unwieldy a machine, and altogether unfitted to a population growing in numbers and intelligence like that of those parts of the kingdom. Even in Scotland, where there is a model of the most perfect Establishment which per haps could be raised, there are the Secession Church, die Relief Church, 152 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. and the Free Church ; that which the State upholds being called by the com plimentary name of the Residuary Church. After the experience of such State Churches, which have done so little good and so much evil, is this a time for establishing another Church ? If I approved of Church endowments by the State I would vote for this Bill with all my heart, because it is calculated to create a kinder feeling towards this country amongst the people of Ireland. Two parties opposed to the Bill are represented by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. They state that the Roman Catholic religion should not be established or helped by the State. But when their Church is absorbing millions of the public money, while millions of their countrymen refuse to enter its doors, how can they for a moment object to the passing of a measure which will give some sort of show of assistance to that Church to which millions of the Irish people belong? The Nonconformist or Dis senting party in this country are op posed to the measure ; but by some of them a spirit is mixed up with their agitation of this question which shows that they do not understand, or do not value, the great principles of Noncon formity, for which their forefathers strug gled and suffered. I allude more es pecially to a portion of the Wesleyan body, which, I believe, does not alto gether repudiate the principle of en dowment. But, with regard to the rest, I am persuaded that their agitation against this measure is honest. If the Dis senters look back to all that their fore fathers have suffered, aye, even within a late period, they will be recreant to their own principles, and merit the contempt of the House and of the world, if they do not come forward/ manfully to uphold their own principles; and dissent from and oppose the mea sure under the consideration of the House. For myself, I shall oppose the Bill in every stage, simply on one ground, that I believe the principle of endowment to be most unjust and in jurious to the country, and whatever may be the effect on any Government, whether that of the right hon. Baronet or any that has preceded or will succeed him, no strength of attachment to party or Government will induce me to tam per with what I hold to be the greatest and dearest principle which any man or any body of men can assert. When I look back to the history of this country, and consider its present condition, I must say, that all that the people pos sess of liberty has come, not through the portals of the cathedrals and the parish churches, but from the conven ticles, which are despised by hon. Gen tlemen opposite. When I know that if a good measure is to be carried in this House, it must be by men who are sent hither by the Nonconformists of Great Britain ; when I read and see^that the past and present State alliance with re ligion is hostile to religious liberty, pre venting all growth and nearly destroying all vitality in religion itself, then I shall hold myself to have read, thought, and lived in vain, if I vote for a measure which in the smallest degree shall give any further power or life to the princi ple of State endowment ; and, in con clusion, I will only exhort the Dissenters of England to act in the same way, and to stand upon their own great, pure, and unassailable principle ; for, if they stand by it manfully, and work for it vigorously, the time may come, nay, it will come, when that principle will be adopted by the Legislature of the country. — s-s-e^S^-s--— IRELAND. II. CRIME AND OUTRAGE BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 13, 1847. [Towards the conclusion of this year (1847) numerous crimes and outrages of a serious character were committed in Ireland. They were chiefly agrarian. In order to in crease the powers of the Irish Executive, Parliament was invited in the Queen's Speech (Nov. 23) to take further precautions against the perpetration of crime in certain counties in Ireland. The Bill was moved by Sir George Grey on Nov. 29, and leave was given, by 224 votes to 18, was read a second time (296 to 19) on Dec. 9, and passed (174 to 14) Qn Dec. 13. It was passed in the House of Lords on Dec. 19. On July 31, 1848, the Irish Government proclaimed certain districts in which rebellion had broken out. Smith O'Brien and the other leaders of the insurgents were speedily arrested, tried, and convicted.] I feel very much in the position of the hon. Member who has just ad dressed the House, for I am in some degree compelled to speak before this Bill is read a third time. I have pre sented a petition against the Bill, signed by more than 20,000 persons, inhabit ants of the borough of Manchester, and I am unwilling to. vote without briefly giving the reasons which make it im possible for me to oppose this Bill. When I recollect the circumstances at tending the rejection of the Bill of 1846, for the protection of life in Ireland, I am convinced that the Government would not have brought forward the present measure if it had not appeared to them absolutely necessary, and that, but for this supposed necessity, it would never have been heard of. The case of the Government, so far as the necessity for this Bill is con cerned, seems to me to be as clear and as perfect as it can be. From the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Home Department, from the unanimous statements of all the newspapers, and from the evidence of all parties connected with Ireland, it is placed beyond a doubt that in the disturbed districts of Ireland the ordi nary law is utterly powerless. The reason why the law is carried into effect in England is, because the feeling of the people is in favour of it, and every man is willing to become and is in reality a peace officer, in order to further the ends of justice. But in Ireland this state of things does not exist. The public sentiment 154 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 13, in certain districts is depraved and thoroughly vitiated. [Mr. J. O'Connell : 'No! No!'] The hon. Member cries ' No, No ; ' but I maintain that in the disturbed districts the public or popular feeling is as I have described it. I do not mean to assert that all which the newspapers contain is true, or that they contain all the truth ; but I ask the hon. Gentleman if he has not read ac counts which are not contradicted, from which we learn that on the occurrence of some recent cases of assassination, whole districts have been in a state of rejoicing and exultation ? These assas sinations are not looked upon as mur ders, but rather as executions. Take the case of Mr. Lloyd, a clergyman, who was recently assassinated. There was no show of vindictive feeling on the part of his murderers; there was little of the character of ordinary mur ders in it. The servant was allowed to depart unharmed; a boy who was in the carriage was removed that he might not be injured ; and the unhappy gentle man was shot with all the deliberation and the calmness with which a man would be made to suffer the extreme penalty of the law. It is clear, then, that the ordinary law fails, and that the Govern ment have a case for the demand they make for an extension of the present powers of the law. I do not say the present Bill will cer tainly be effective, but it is the less to be opposed because it does not greatly exceed or infringe the ordinary law; and it is the duty of the Legislature, when called upon to strengthen the Ex ecutive, to do so by the smallest pos sible infringement of the law- and the constitution. But to leave the par ticular measure now before us, I am bound to say that the case of the Go vernment with respect to their Irish policy in general is not as good as could be wished. The Government has not shown the courage which is necessary to deal effectually with the difficulties of Ireland. They should remember what passed when the Poor-law was pro posed for that country. They were told it would be a failure — that it could not be worked ; but disregarding these statements, they passed the Bill ; and I believe, since the Act of 1829, no mea sure has passed this House of equal benefit to Ireland. The noble Lord at the head of the Government has said that all parties are to be blamed for the misgovemment of Ireland ; but he should remember the responsibility which is upon him, for he is now in the position of dictator on Irish questions, and whatever he proposes for that country, I verily believe, will find no successful opposition in this House. There is another fact to which I would 'call attention. The Irish Mem bers complain, and very justly, of the past legislation of this House ; but when we call to mind that there are 105 of them here, of whom 60 or 70 are of Liberal politics or opinions, and that about 30 of them are Repealers, and hold very strong views with regard to the mismanagement of Irish affairs in the' Imperial Parliament, I think we have a right to complain that they have not laid on the table of the House any one measure which they believe to be neces sary to the prosperity of their country. I have been in this House more than four years, and I have never yet seen die Irish Members bringing forward any proposition of a practical character —nor am I aware that they have sup ported any 'measure they deemed neces sary for Ireland, with unanimity and earnestness, or with anything like per severance and resolution. I am sure that 105, or even 30 English Members, sitting in a Parliament in Dublin, and believing their countiy had suffered from the effects of bad legislation, would, by their knowledge of the case, their business habits, activity, union, and perseverance, have showed'a power ful front, and 'by uniting together, and working manfully in favour of any pro position they might think necessary to remedy the evils of which they com plained, they would have forced it on the attention of the House. But the Irish Members have not done this. So 1847. IRELAND. II. 155 far then, they are and have been as much to blame as any other Member of this House for the absence of good government in Ireland. I will not, like them, complain of bad legislation, and propose no remedy. What is the condition of Ireland ? Last year we voted millions to keep its population from starvation ; and this year we have been asked for a further sum, but have not granted it. We maintain a large army in Ireland, and an armed police, which is an army in everything but in name, and yet we have in that country a condition of things which is not to be matched in any other civilized country on the face of the earth, and which is alike dis graceful to Ireland and to us. The great cause of Ireland's calamities is, that Ireland is idle. I believe it would be found, on inquiry, that the popula tion of Ireland, as compared with that of England, do not work more than two days per week. Wherever a people are not industrious and are not employed, there is the greatest danger of crime and outrage. Ireland is idle, and there fore she starves ; Ireland starves, and therefore she rebels. We must choose between industry and anarchy : we must have one or the other in Ireland. This proposition I believe to be incontro vertible, and I defy the House to give peace and prosperity to that country until they set in motion her industry, create and diffuse capital, and thus es tablish those gradations of rank and condition by which the whole social fabric can alone be held together. But the idleness of the people of Ireland is not wholly their fault. It is for the most part a forced idleness, for it is notorious that when the Irish come to England, or remove to the United States or the Colonies, they are about the hardest working people in the world. We employ them down in Lancashire, and with the prospect of good pay they work about as well, and are as trust worthy, and quiet, and well-disposed to the law as the people of this country. The great secret of their idleness at home is, that there is little or no trade in Ireland; there are few flourishing towns to which the increasing popula tion can resort for employment, so that there is a vast mass of people living on the land ; and the land itself is not half so useful for their employment and sus- tentation as it might be. A great pro portion of her skill, her strength, her sinews, and her labour, is useless to Ireland for the support of her popula tion. Every year they have a large emigration, because there are a great number of persons with just enough means to transport themselves to other countries, who, finding it impossible to live at home in comfort, carry them selves and their capital out of Ireland ; so that, year after year, she loses a large portion of those between the very poorest and the more wealthy classes of society, and with them many of the opportu nities for the employment of labour. I do not believe that the Bill for regulating the relations of landlord and tenant, as recommended by the hon. Member for the County of Limerick, will restore prosperity to Ireland. Such a measure may be passed with great advantage ; but if it be intended by a Bill with this title to vest the owner ship of the land in the present occupiers, I believe this House will never pass it, and if it did, that it would prove most fatal to the best interests of the country. I think we have a right to blame the Government that as yet we have not seen the Bill for the sale of encumbered estates in Ireland. I wish to ask why such a Bill is not ready before this ? [Lord John Russell : ' The Bill has been ready a long time.'] The noble Lord says the Bill has been ready long ago ; but that statement only makes the Government open to greater blame, for if the Bill is ready, why has it not been brought forward before this ? Last Session the Bill was withdrawn, and the reason given was that landlords and mortgagees did not like it. If the Government wait till the landlords and mortgagees like it, it will never be brought forward at all. Had they SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. 13, waited till the Irish landlords asked for the Poor-law, there would have been no Poor-law in Ireland now. The Government should disregard the opposition of these parties, and should take their stand above all class interests. They must refuse to listen to the in terested suggestions of one class or the other, and they must remember that they are the Executive Government of the country, and bound to act for the public good. There is an unanimous admission now that the misfortunes of Ireland are connected with the question of the management of the land. I have a theory that, in England as well as in Ireland, the proprietors of the soil are chiefly responsible for whatever bad legislation has been inflicted upon us. The ownership, of land confers more political power than the possession of any other description of property. The Irish landowners, have been willing parties to the past legislation for Ireland, and they have also, had the administra tion and execution of the laws in that countiy. The encumbered condition of landed property in Ireland is at this moment the most pressing question. I am informed by a gentleman in Dublin, of the best means of information and of undoubted veracity, that in the province of Connaught there is not five per cent. of the' land1 free from settlements of one kind or other, and that probably not one per cent, is free from mortgages. I have asked Irish Members of all parties if this be true, and not one of them is disposed to deny it ; and if it be true, I say it is idle to seek elsewhere for the source of the evils of Ireland ; and every day, nay, every hour we allow to go by without taking instant measures to. remedy this crying mischief, only adds to the criminality which rests on us for our past legislation. Patchwork legislation will not now succeed ; speeches from the Lord Lieu tenant — articles in the newspapers — lending to the landowners at 3! per cent, money raised by taxation from the traders of England, who have recently been paying 8 per cent. — all will fail to revive the industry of Ireland. I will now state what, in my opinion, is the remedy, and I beg to ask the attention of the Government to it, because, though they may now think it an ex treme one, I am convinced that the time will come when they will be compelled to adopt it. In the first place, it is their duty to bring in a Sale of Estates Bill, and make it easy for landowners who wish to dispose of their estates to do so. They should bring in a Bill to simplify the titles to land in Ireland. I under stand that it is almost impossible to transfer an estate now, the difficulties in the way of a clear title being almost insurmountable. In the next place, they should diminish temporarily, if not permanently, all stamp duties which hinder the transfer of landed property, and they should pass a law by which the system of entailing estates should for the future be prevented. [Laughter.] I can assure hon. Gentlemen who laugh at this, that at some not distant day this must be done, and not in Ireland only, but in England alsov It is an ab surd and monstrous system, for it binds, as it were, the living under the power of the dead. The principle on which the law should proceed is this, that the owner of property should be permitted to leave it to whomsoever he will, pro vided the individual is living when the will is made; but he should not be suffered, after he is dead, and buried, and forgotten, to speak and still to direct the channel through which the estate should pass. I shall be told that the law of entail in Ireland is the same as in England, and that in Scotland it is even more strict. I admit it ; but the evil is great in England, and in Scotland it has become intolerable, and must soon be relaxed if not abolished. Per haps I shall be told that the laws of entail and primogeniture are necessary for the maintenance of our aristocratic institutions ; but if the evils of Ireland spring from this source, I say, perish your aristocratic institutions rather than that 1847. IRELAND. II. 157 a whole nation should be in this terrible condition. If your aristocratic families would rear up their children in habits of business, and with some notions of duty and prudence, these mischievous arrangements would not be required, and they would retain in their posses sion estates at least as large as is com patible with the interests of the rest of the community. If the laws of entail and primogeniture are sound and just, why not apply them to personal pro perty as well as to freehold ? Imagine them in force in the middle classes of the community, and it will be seen at once that the unnatural system, if universal, would produce confusion ; and confusion would necessitate its total abolition. I am thoroughly convinced that every thing the Government or Parliament can do for Ireland will be unavailing, unless the foundation of the work be laid well and deep, by clearing away the fetters under which land is now held, so that it may become the possession of real owners, and be made instrumental to the employment and sustentation of the people. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may fancy themselves interested in main taining the present system ; but there is surely no interest they can have in it which they will weigh against the safety and prosperity of Ireland ? I speak- as a representative from a county which suffers extremely from the condition of Ireland. Lancashire is periodically over run by the pauperism of Ireland ; for a year past it has suffered most seriously from the pestilence imported from Ire land ; and many of the evils which in times past have been attributed to the extension of manufactures in that county have arisen from the enormous immi gration of a suffering and pauperized people driven for sustenance from their own countiy. As a Lancashire representative, I protest most solemnly against a system which drives the Irish population to seek work and wages in this countiy and in other countries, when both might be afforded them at home. Parliament is bound to remedy this state of things. The present Parliament contains a larger num ber of men of business and of members representing the middle classes than any former Parliament. The present Govern ment is essentially of the middle class — [a laugh] — and its Members have on many occasions shown their sympathy with it. Let the hon. Gentleman laugh ; but he will not deny that no Government. can long have a majority in this House which does not sympathise with the great middle class of this country. If the Government will manfully and courageously grapple with the question of the condition of land in Ireland, they will, I am convinced, be supported by a majority of the Members of this House, they will enable the strength and skill of Irishmen to be expended on their own soil, and lay the foundation of her certain prosperity by giving that sti mulus and reward to industry which it cannot have in the present circumstances of that country. Sir, I feel it impos sible to refuse my vote in favour of the Bill now before us ; but I am compelled to say that unless the Government will zealously promote measures in the di rection I have indicated, they cannot hope long to retain the confidence of this House or of the country. IRELAND. in. EMPLOYMENT OF THE POOR. HOUSE OF COMMONS, AUGUST 25, 1848. From the speeches that have been delivered in this debate, and from what we know of Ireland, it is clear that Ireland is so entirely disorganised, that it is extremely difficult to suggest any means by which relief can be exten sively given without causing two evils : first, the waste of a great portion of the money which is granted ; and next, the demoralization of a large number of those to whom the relief is given. It is on account of these difficulties that I am disposed to make great allowance for the measures which the Government have undertaken, as well as for any propositions which may be made by the hon. Member for Stroud, even when they appear somewhat inconsistent with correct economical principles. As this is probably the last opportunity during this Session when the question of the condition of Ireland can be dis cussed, I am anxious to avail myself of it to offer a few observations to the House, and to explain briefly what I conceive to be the course which ought to be taken with regard to that country, to enable its population to place them selves in a position of comfort and independence. The past of Ireland is known to us all ; it is a tale of idleness, and poverty, and periodical insurrection ; the present of Ireland is like the past, except that at this moment all its ordi nary evils are exhibited in an aggravated form. But there are one or two points with regard to this subject to which I wish especially to ask the attention of the House. Have you ever fully con sidered the effect which this state of things in Ireland has upon the con dition of certain districts in England? We have had some threatenings of dis turbances in England, and of disaffec tion — I hope it is not widespread — here and there in various parts of the country. Take the county of Lancaster as an ex ample, and you will see something of the consequences of a large influx of the Irish population into that district. In Liverpool and Manchester, and in all the belt of towns which surround Man chester, there is a large Irish popula tion — in fact, there is an Irish quarter in each of these towns. It is true that a great number of these persons are steady, respectable, and industrious, but it is notorious that a portion of them are, in some degree, the opposite of all this. They bring to this country all the vices which have prevailed so long in Ireland; their influence on the people AUG. 25, I848. IRELAND. III. 159 of Lancashire is often of an unfavourable character, and the effect of their example on the native population must neces sarily be injurious. We find that crimes attended with violence prevail too ge nerally in Lancashire and Yorkshire. These crimes to a large extent are com mitted by persons who are not natives of those counties, but who come from Ireland, because it is impossible for them to find subsistence, in that countiy. There is another point which seems to me important. Driven forth by poverty, Irishmen emigrate in great numbers, and in whatever quarter of the world an Irishman sets his foot, there stands a bitter, an implacable enemy of England. That is one of the results of the widespread disaffec tion that exists in Ireland. There are hundreds of thousands — I suppose there are millions — of the population of the United States of America who are Irish by birth, or by immediate descent ; and be it remembered, Irishmen settled in the United States have a large influence in public affairs. They sometimes sway the election of Members of the Legis lature, and may even affect the election of the President of the Republic. There may come a time when questions of a critical nature will be agitated between the Governments of Great Britain and the United States ; and it is certain that at such a time the Irish in that country will throw their whole weight into the scale against this country, and against peace with this country. These are points which it is necessary to consider, and which arise out of the lamentable condition in which Ireland is placed. When we reflect for a moment upon the destitution which millions of our countrymen suffer in that unfortunate island, die conclusion is inevitable that either the Government or the people of Ireland are in fault. I think both are in fault. I think the Government has been negligent of Ireland. I do not mean the present Government in par ticular; for they are fully as anxious for the welfare of Ireland as any former Administration has been — but I think the Government generally has been neg ligent of Ireland. It is a common thing to hear it said, and especially by Gen tlemen sitting on the Treasury bench, that the remedy for Irish evils is dif ficult, and that the difficulty seems in surmountable ; but the House may rest assured that no difficulty can be so great as that which must be met if no remedy is applied. To do anything that can be effectual, must be infinitely less dangerous than to do nothing. Now I believe the real difficulties which beset this question do not arise from anything in Ireland, so much as from the constitution of the Govern ment. This House, and the other House of Parliament, are almost exclusively aristocratic in their character. The Ad ministration is therefore necessarily the same, and on the Treasury benches aristocracy reigns supreme. No fewer than seven Members of the Cabinet are Members of the House of Lords ; and every other Member of it is either a Lord by title, or on the very threshold of the peerage by birth or marriage. I am not blaming them for this ; it may even be that from neither House of Parlia ment can fourteen better men be chosen to fill their places. But I maintain that in the present position of Ireland, and looking at human nature as it is, it is not possible that fourteen Gentlemen, circumstanced as they are, can meet round the Council table, and with un biassed minds fairly discuss the question of Ireland, as it now presents itself to this House, to the country, and to the world. The condition of Ireland requires two kinds of remedies — one political, the other social; and it is hard to tell where the one ends and the other begins. I will speak first of the political remedies. At present, there prevails throughout three-fourths of the Irish people a total unbelief in the honesty and integrity of the Government of this country. There may or may not be good grounds for all this ill feeling; but that it exists, no man acquainted i6o SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST 25, with Ireland will deny. The first step to be taken is to remove this feeling; and, to do this, some great measure or measures should be offered to the peo ple of Ireland, which will act as a com plete demonstration to them that by gones are to be bygones, with regard to the administration of Irish affairs, and that henceforth new, generous, and equal principles of government are to be adopted. I have on a former occasion stated my opinions on one or two subjects, and I will venture again briefly to explain them to the House. Ireland has long been a country of jars and turmoil, and its jars have arisen chiefly from religious dissensions. In respect of matters of re ligion she has been governed in a man ner totally unknown in England and Scotland. If Ireland has been rightly governed— if it has been wise and just to maintain the Protestant Church es tablished there, you ought, in order to carry out your system, to establish Pre lacy in Scotland, and Catholicism in England; though, if you were to at tempt to do either the one or the other, it would not be a sham but a real insur rection that you would provoke. There must be equality between the great religious sects in Ireland — between Ca tholic and Protestant. It is impossible that this equality can be much longer denied. It is suspected that it is the intention of the Government to bring forward at no distant day, if they can catch the people of England napping, a propo sition for paying the Roman Catholic priests of Ireland. On more than one ground I should object to any such scheme. In the first place, I believe the Government cannot, from any funds they possess, or from any they can obtain, place the Catholic priests on an equality with the ministers of the Pro testant Church ; and if they cannot do that in every respect, the thing is not worth attempting. They will, I think, find it infinitely more easy, and it will certainly be much more in accordance with political justice, and with the true interests of religion, to withdraw from Ireland the.Church Establishment which now exists there, and to bring about the perfect equality which may be secured by taking away so much of the funds as are proved to be totally unnecessary for the wants of the population. I do not mean that you should withdraw from the Protestant Church every six pence now in its possession; what I mean is, that you should separate it from the State, and appropriate all the funds of which it might justly be de prived to some grand national object, such as the support and extension of the system of education now established in Ireland; an appropriation of money which would, I am sure, produce in the minds of the people of Ireland an entire change of feeling with regard to the legislation of Parliament in relation to their country. With regard to the Parliamentary representation of Ireland, having re cently spent seventy-three days in an examination of the subject, whilst serv ing as a member of the Dublin Election Committee, I assert most distinctly that the representation which exists at this moment is a fraud; and I believe it would be far better if there were no representation at all, because the people would not then be deluded by the idea that they had a representative Govern ment to protect their interests. The number of taxes which the people have to pay, in order to secure either the municipal or Parliamentary franchise, is so great that it is utterly impossible for the constituencies to be maintained, and for public opinion— the honest, real opinion of intelligent classes in Ireland — to obtain any common or decent degree of representation in the Imperial Legislature. I feel quite confident that in the next Session of Parliament, the questions of religious equality in Ireland and of Irish representation must receive a much more serious attention than they have obtained in any past Ses sion. I come now to those social questions which must also receive the attention i848. IRELAND. III. 161 of Parliament; for if they do not, the political remedies will, after all, be of very little permanent use. I advocate these political changes on the ground, not that they will feed the hungry or employ the idle, but that they will be as oil thrown upon the waters, and will induce the people no longer to feel themselves treated as a conquered race. It is agreed on all sides that the social remedies which are immediately pos sible to us, are those having reference to the mode in which the land of Ireland is owned, or held and cultivated — per haps ' not cultivated ' would be a more correct expression. The noble Lord at the head of the Government has alluded to parts of Ireland in which it is impos sible that the land as at present held, or the rates which can be collected, can find relief or sustentation for the people. It is a notorious fact, that there are vast tracts of land in Ireland, which, if left in the hands of nominal and bankrupt owners, will never to the end of time support the population which ought to live upon them. And it is on this ground that I must question the policy of measures for expending public money with a view to the cultivation and recla mation of these lands. The true solution of this matter is to get the lands out of the hands of men who are the nominal, and not the real, possessors. But Parliament maintains laws which act most injuriously in this particular. The law and practice of entails tends to keep the soil in large properties, and in the hands of those who cannot perform their duty to it. It will be said that entails exist in Scot land and in England. Yes; but this Session a law has passed, or is passing, to modify the system as it has hereto fore existed in Scotland ; and in Eng land many of its evils have been partially overcome by the extraordinary, and, to some degree, the accidental extension of manufacturing industry among the peo ple. In Ireland there are no such miti gations ; a code of laws exists, under which it is impossible for the land and the people to be brought, as it were, together, and. for industry to live in in dependence and comfort, instead of crawling to this House, as it does almost annually, to ask alms of the hardworking people of England. The law and practice of primogeni ture is another evil of the same character. It is a law unnatural and unjust at all times; but in the present condition of Ireland it cannot much longer be en dured. Were I called upon — and it is a bold figure of speech to mention such a thing — but were I called upon to treat this Irish question, I would establish, for a limited period at least, a special court in Ireland to adjudicate on all questions connected with the titles and transfers of landed property. This court should finally decide questions of title ; it should prepare and enforce a simple and short form of conveyance, as short almost as that by which railway stock is transferred ; and, without regard to the public revenue, I would abolish every farthing of expense which is now incurred in the duties on stamps, for the purpose of facilitating the distribution of land in Ireland, and of allowing the capital and industry of the people to work out its salvation. All this is pos sible; and, more than this, it is all necessary. Well, now, what is the real obstacle in our path ? You have toiled at this Irish difficulty Session after Ses sion, and some of you have grown almost from boyhood to greyheaded old men since it first met you in your legis lative career, and yet there is not in ancient or modem histoiy a picture so humiliating as that which Ireland pre sents to the world at this moment ; and there is not an English gentleman who, if he crossed the Channel in the present autumn, and travelled in any foreign country, would not wish to escape from any conversation among foreigners in which the question of the condition of Ireland was mooted for a single moment. Let the House, if it can, regard Ire land as an English countiy. Let us think of the eight millions of people, and of the millions of them doomed to l62 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. this intolerable suffering. Let us think of the half-million who, within two years past, have perished miserably in the workhouses, and on the high ways, and in their hovels — more, far more than ever fell by the sword in any war this countiy ever waged ; let us think of the crop of nameless horrors which is even now growing up in Ire land, and whose disastrous fruit may be gathered in years and generations to come. Let us examine what are the laws and the principles under which alone God and nature have permitted that nations should become industrious and provident. I hope the House will pardon me if I have said a word that can offend any one. But I feel conscious of a personal humiliation when I consider the state of Ireland. I do not wish to puff nostrums of my own, though it may be thought I am opposed to much that exists in the present order of things ; but whether it tended to advance democracy, or to up hold aristocracy, or any other system, I would wish to fling to the winds any prejudice I have entertained, and any principle that may be questioned, if I can thereby do one single thing to hasten by a single day the time when Ireland shall be equal to England in that comfort and that independence which an industrious people may enjoy, if the Government under which they live is equal and just. sl?-;5s-- IRELAND. IV. RATE IN AID. HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 2, 1849. [On February 7, 1849, a proposal was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that a sum of 50,000/. should be granted to certain Irish Unions, in which distress was more than usually prevalent. The resolution was passed on March 3. On March 27 the second reading of the Bill founded on this resolution was moved, and the debate con tinued till April 3, when the second reading was affirmed by 193 votes to 138. The third reading was carried by 129 to 55, on April 30. The Bill passed the House of Lords on May 18.] I ventured to move the adjournment of the debate on Friday night, because I was anxious to have the opportunity of expressing the opinions which I enter tain on this most important subject. I am one of the Committee appointed by this House to inquire into the working of the Irish poor-law, and on that Com mittee I was one of the majority — the large majority — by which the resolution for a rate in aid was affirmed. In the division which took place on the same proposition in the House, I also voted in the majority. But I am not by any means disposed to say that there are no reasons against the course which I take, or against the proposition which has been submitted to the House by the Govern ment. On the whole, however, I am prepared to-night to justify that propo sition, and the vote which I have given for it. As to the project of raising money for the purpose of these distressed Unions, I think there can be no doubt in the mind of any Member of the House, that money must come from some quarter. It appears to be a question of life or money. All the witnesses who were examined before the Committee; the concurrent testimony of all parties in Ireland, of all the public papers, of all the speeches which have been delivered in the course of this debate, go to prove, that unless additional funds be provided, tens of thousands of our unfortunate fellow-countrymen in Ireland must perish of famine in the course of the present j'ear. If this be true, it is evident that a great necessity is upon us ; a grave emergency, which we must meet. I am not prepared to justify the proposition of a rate in aid merely on the ground of this necessity, because it will be said, and justly, that the same amount of funds might be raised by some other mode ; but I am prepared to justify the proposition which restricts this rate in 164 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. aid to Ireland, on the ground that the rest of the United Kingdom has, during the past three years, paid its own rate in aid for Ireland; and this to a far larger amount than any call which the Government now proposes to make on the rateable property in Ireland. We have taken from the general taxa tion of this countiy, in the last two or three years, for the purposes of Ireland, several millions, I may say not fewer than from eight to ten millions sterling. We have paid also very large subscrip tions from private resources, to the same purpose ; the sums expended by the British Association were not less, in the aggregate, than 600,000/., in addi tion to other large amounts contributed. The Irish, certainly, gave something to these funds; but by far the larger amount was paid by the tax-paying classes of Great Britain. In addition to this special outlay for this purpose, very heavy local taxation has been incurred by several of the great communities of this island, for the purpose of supporting the pauperism which has escaped from Ireland to Great Britain. In this metropolis, in Glasgow, in Liverpool, and in the great manu facturing town which I have the honour to represent, the overflow of Irish pau perism has, within the last two or three years more especially, occasioned a vast additional burden of taxation. I believe the hon. Member for South Lancashire made some statement in this House on a former occasion with respect to the burden which was inflicted upon Liver pool by the Irish paupers, who con stantly flow into that town. As to Glasgow, the poor-rate levied last year in the city parish alone, amounted to 70,000/. ; and this year, owing to the visitation of cholera and the poverty thereby engendered, there will be an additional assessment of 20,000/. The city parish contains only about 1 20,000 or 130,000 of the 280,000 residents in the mass of buildings known by the general name of Glasgow. Of the sum levied as poor-rate in the city parish, it is estimated that, oh ah average, two- thirds are spent upon Irish paupers. The ranks of these Irish paupers are recruited to a comparatively small extent from the Irish workmen, who have been, with their families, attracted by, and who have found employment in, the numerous manufactories of Glasgow. The Irish paupers, upon whom two- thirds of the Glasgow poor-rates are spent, are principally squalid and desti tute creatures who are brought over as deck passengers, clustering like bees to the bulwarks and rigging, by almost every steamer that sails from a northern Irish port. With respect to the town of Manchester, I am able to give some more definite particulars as to the burthen imposed upon the inhabitants for the support of the Irish casual poor. In the year 1848, the sum ex pended in the relief of the settled poor, which term includes the resident Irish who are not distinguished by name from the English, amounted to 37,847/. The sum expended for the relief of the non-settled English paupers in the town of Manchester, in the year 1848, was 18,699/. The amount ex pended for the relief of casual Irish poor alone was 28,007/. The total assessment of Manchester is 647,568/., which, if divided by the amount required to relieve the casual Irish poor, would amount to a rate of iojd. in the pound upon every pound of rateable property in the town of Manchester ; but if esti mated according to the property really rated (as there are great numbers of persons who, from poverty, do not pay the poor-rates on the property they occupy), the amount of assessment for the relief of the casual Irish poor alone will be from ic,d. to i8d. in the pound, and the Charge upon the ratepayers of Manchester for the relief of the Irish casual poor during the last year is not less than 2s. Id. per head upon the whole population of that town. Now, during the last year, Manch ester had to struggle with veiy severe difficul ties, and the manufacturers there suffered most acutely from various causes. The failure of the cotton crop of 1846, the panic in the financial and commercial 1849. IRELAND. IV. 16"5 world in 1847, the convulsions in the European States in 1848 — all these contributed to bring upon Manchester enormous evil ; and in addition to this we had to bear an additional burden of 28,000/. for the maintenance of the casual Irish poor. I have here an ana lysis of the poor-rates collected in Man chester during the last four years, and I will briefly state the results to the House. In the year 1845 the amount of rates collected expressly for the relief of the casual Irish poor was 3,500/. In 1846 the cost of the casual Irish poor imposed a burden upon Manchester of 3,300/. ; in 1847 of 6,558/.; and in 1848 this item of expenditure reached the extraor dinary sum of 28,007/. The people of Manchester have uttered no loud or clamorous complaints respecting the excessive burden borne by them for the support of the Irish. They have sent no urgent deputations to the Govern ment on the subject of this heavy expense. But, seeing that they have paid this money for the relief of Irish paupers, and seeing also that the smaller manufacturing and other towns in England have also paid no small sums for Irish paupers, they do think, and I here express my conviction, that it will be seen and admitted that we have paid our rate in aid for the relief of Ireland, and that it does become the landowners and persons of property in that country to make an effort during a temporary period to supply that small sum which is by this Bill demanded of them. I will now say a few words regard ing the province of Ulster. An hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Londonderry, who made a not very civil speech, so far as it regarded per sons who entertain the same opinions generally which I profess, seemed to allege that there was no party so tyrannical as those who wished to carry this rate in aid, and that no body of men on earth were so oppressed as the unfortunate proprietors of Ulster. [Mr. Bateson : ' The farmers of Ulster.'] I have made a calculation, the result of which is, that, with the population of Ulster, a 6d. rate would be 82,000/. a-year, or 164,000/. for the two years during which they will be required to pay towards the support of their fellow- countrymen in the south and west. If I were an Ulster proprietor, I would not have raised my voice against such a proposition, because it is not a state of things of an ordinary character, nor are these proprietors called on to do that which nobody else has done be fore them. Neither were they called upon before other sources had been applied to. Had I been an Ulster pro prietor, I would rather have left this House than have taken the course they have pursued in denouncing this mea sure. As to the farmers of Ulster, they would not have raised this opposition had they not been instigated to do so by hon. Members in this House, and by the proprietors in that province, whom they represented. It appears by the reports of the inspectors under the poor- law, that where there has been a diffi culty in collecting rates, and the people have refused to pay, they have followed the example of the higher and landlord class ; and the conduct of that class in many cases has been such as to render the collection extremely difficult. [Mr. Bateson : ' Not in Ulster.'] I do not speak of Ulster particularly in this in stance, but the case has occurred in other places ; but happily for Ulster the burden has not proved so serious in that province. I have heard a good deal said respect ing the resignation of Mr. Twisleton, who preferred giving up his situation to sup porting the rate in aid. But the reasons assigned by Mr. Twisleton destroy the importance of his own act. He did not insist upon the question whether Ulster was able to bear the rate in aid; but his objection was that Ulster was Ulster, and more Ulster than it was Ireland. He said Ulster preferred being united with England, rather than with Lein- ster, Connaught, and Munster; in short, that Ulster was unwilling to be made a part of Ireland. Now, if this Bill can succeed in making Ulster a part of 1 66 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL £, Ireland in interests and sympathies, I think it will be attended with a very happy result, and one that will com pensate for some portion of the present misfortunes of Ireland. But the hon. Member also, in another part of his speech, charged the Govern ment with having caused the calamities of Ireland. Now, if I were the hon. Member, I would not have opened up that question. My opinion is, that the course which Parliament has taken with respect to Ireland for upwards of a century, and especially since the Union, has been in accordance with the wishes of the proprietors of the land of that country. If, therefore, there has been misgovemment in Ireland during that period, it is the land which has influ enced Parliament, and the landowners are responsible. I do not mean to say that the House of Commons is not re sponsible for taking the evil advice which the landowners of Ireland have proffered ; but what I mean to assert is, that this advice has been almost invari ably acted upon by the Government. This it is which has proved fatal to the interests of Ireland; the Ulster men have stood in the way of improvements in the Franchise, in the Church, and in the Land question ; they have purchased Protestant ascendency, and the price paid for it is the ruin and degradation of their countiy. So much for the vote which I am about to give in support of the rate in aid. In the next place, I must observe diat if an income tax were to be substituted for a rate in aid, I think I could show substantial reasons why it would not be satisfactory. In the first place, I take an objection to the imposition of an income tax for the express purpose of supporting paupers. This, I apprehend, is a fatal objection at the outset. I understand that there has been a docu ment issued by a Committee in another place, which has reported favourably for the substitution of an income tax in lieu of the rate in aid. I always find that if a proposition is brought forward by the Government to impose a new tax, it is always for a tax which is dis liked, and I conclude, that if an income tax for Ireland had been proposed in stead of the rate in aid, that would have been repudiated with quite as much vigour as the proposition now before the House. And now I will address a few words to the general question of Ireland, which I think may be fairly entered upon in this debate after the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tam- worth. What have we been doing all the Session ? With the exception of the Jewish Oaths Bill, and the Navigation Laws, our attention has been solely taken up with Irish matters. From the incessant recurrence of the Irish debate, it would seem, either that the wrongs and evils endured by the Irish people are incurable, or else that we lack statesmen. I always find that, whoever happens to sit on the other side of the table, he always has some scheme to propose for the regeneration of Ireland. The noble Lord on the Treasury bench had his schemes for that purpose when he was seated opposite. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tam- worth now has his scheme to propose, and if he can succeed in it, he will not only have the universal wish of the nation in his favour, but the noble Lord also who is at the head of the Govern ment will not, I am sure, object to give way to any man who will settle the Irish question. But the treatment of this Irish malady remains ever the same. We have nothing for it still but force and alms. You have an armed force there of 50,000 men to keep the people quiet, large votes are annually required to keep the people quiet, and large vote's are annually required to keep the people alive. I presume the govern ment by troops is easy, and that the ' Civil power may snore at ease, While soldiers fire — to keep the peace.' But the noble Lord at the head of the Government has no policy to propose for Ireland. If he had, he would have told us what it is before now. The IRELAND. IV. 167 poor-law as a means of regenerating Ireland is a delusion. So is the rate in aid. I do not believe in the regenerating power either of the poor-law or of the rate in aid. There may occur cases where farmers will continue to em ploy labourers for the mere purpose of preventing them from coming on the poor-rates, but these are exceptions. If the desire of, gain will not cause the employment of capital, assuredly poor- rates will not. A poor-law adds to pauperism, by inviting to idleness. It drags down the man who pays, and de moralises him who receives. It may expose, it may temporarily relieve, it will increase, but it can never put an end to pauperism. The poor-law and the rate in aid are, therefore, utterly unavailing for such a purpose. It is the absence of all demand for labour that constitutes the real evil of Ireland. In the distressed Unions a man's labour is absolutely worth no thing. It is not that the Irish people will not work. I spoke to an Irish navigator the other day respecting his work, and I asked him why his country men did not work in their own country. ' Give them 2s. Sd. a-day,' said he, ' and you will find plenty who will work.' There exists in Ireland a lamentable want of employment. The land there enjoys a perpetual sabbath. If the people of Ireland were set to work, they would gain their subsistence ; but if this course is not adopted, they must either continue to be supported out of the taxes, or else be left to starve. In order to show how great is the general poverty in Ireland, I will read a state ment of the comparative amount of legacy duty paid in the two countries. In England, in the year 1844, the amount of capital on which legacy duty was paid was 44,393,887/, ; in Ireland, in 1845, the amount of capital on which legacy duty was paid was 2,140,021/. — the population of the latter being nearly one-half of the former, whilst the pro portion between the capital paying legacy duty is only one-twentieth. In 1844, the legacy duty paid in England was 1,124,435/., with a population of 16,000,000 ; in Scotland it was 74,116/., with a population of 3,000,000 ; whilst Ireland paid only 53,618/., with a popu lation of 8,oco,ooo. These facts offer the strongest possible proof of the poverty of Ireland. On looking over the reports of the Poor-law Inspectors, I find them teem ing with statements of the wretchedness which prevails in the distressed districts of Ireland. The general character of the reports is, that starvation is, lite rally speaking, gradually driving the population into their graves. The peo ple cannot quit their hovels for want of clothing, whilst others cannot be dis charged from the workhouses owing to the same cause. Men are seen wearing women's apparel, not being able to pro cure proper clothing; whilst, in other instances, men, women, and children are all huddled together under bundles of rags, unable to rise for lack of cover ing; workhouses and prisons are crowded beyond their capacity to contain, the mortality being very great in them. Persons of honest character commit thefts in order to be sent to prison, and some ask, as a favour, to be transported. I know of nothing like this in the history of modern times. The only parallel I can find to it is in the work of the great German author (Mosheim), who, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, speaking of the inroads of the barbarians into the Roman empire in the fifth century, says that in Gaul, the calamities of the times drove many to such madness, that they wholly excluded God from the government of the world, and denied His providence over human affairs. It would almost appear that this state of things is now to be seen in Ireland. The prisons are crowded, the chapels deserted, society is disorganized and rained ; labour is useless, for capital is not to be had for its employment. The reports of the Inspectors say that this catastrophe has only been hastened, and not originated, by the failure of the potato crop during the last four years, and that all men possessed of any intel- i68 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 2, | ligence must have foreseen what would ultimately happen. This being the case, in what manner are the Irish people to subsist in future ? There is the land, and there is labour enough to bring it into cultivation. But such is the state in which the land is placed, that capital cannot be employed upon it. You have tied up the raw material in such a manner — you have created such a monopoly of land by your laws and your mode of dealing with it, as to render it alike a curse to the people and to the owners of it. Why, let me ask, should land be tied up any more than any other raw material ? If the supply of cotton wool were limited to the hands of the Browns and the Barings, what would be the condition of the Lancashire manufactories ? What the manufactories would be under such a monopoly, the land in the county of Mayo actually is under the system which prevails with respect to it in Ireland. But land carries with it territorial in fluence, which the Legislature will not interfere with lest it should be disturbed. Land is sacred, and must not be touched. The right hon. Gentleman the Presi dent of the Board of Trade will under stand what I mean when I allude to the Land Improvement Company which the Legislature is ready to charter for Ire land, but which it fears to suffer to exist in England, lest the territorial influence which ever accompanies the possession of landed estates should be lost or diminished. But one of die difficulties to which a remedy must be applied is the defective titles, which cannot easily be got rid of under the present system of entails. This is one of die questions to which the House of Commons must very soon give its serious attention. Then there comes the question of settle ments. Now, I do not say there ought not to be any settlements ; but what I mean to say is, that they are so boimd up and entangled with the system of entails as to present insuperable diffi culties in the way of dealing with land as a marketable commodity. I have here an Opinion which I will read to the House, which I find recorded as having been given by an eminent coun sel : it is quoted in Hayes' work on Conveyancing, and the Opinion was given on the occasion of a settlement on the marriage of a gentleman having a fee-simple estate : — ' The proposals extend to a strict settle ment by the gentleman upon the first and other sons of the marriage. It will appear from the preceding observations, that where the relative circumstances are such as in the present case, a strict settie- ment of the gentleman's estate does not ordinarily enter into the arrangement, which begins and ends with his taking the lady's fortune, and imposing an equivalent pecuniary charge upon his estate (for her personal benefit). The proposals seldom go further, unless there is hereditary rank or title to be supported, or it is in con templation to found a family. The former of those two circumstances do not exist in this case, and the latter would require the settlement of the bulk of the estates. The policy of such settlements is extremely questionable. It is difficult to refer them, in the absence of both the motives already indicated, to any rational principle. The present possessor has absolute dominion ; his character is known, his right unques tionable. He is asked to reduce himself to a mere tenant for life in favour of an unborn son, of whose character nothing can be predicted, and who, if he can be said to have any right, cannot possibly have a preferable right. At no very dis tant period the absolute dominion must be confided to somebody — and why should confidence be reposed in the unborn child rather than the living parent? Such a settlement has no tendency to protect or benefit the father, whose advantage and comfort ought first to be consulted. It does not shield him from the consequences of his own imprudence. On the contrary, if his expenditure should in any instance exceed his income, he — as a mere tenant for life — is in danger of being obliged to borrow on annuity, a process which, once begun, proceeds generally and almost ne cessarily to the exhaustion of the life IRELAND. IV. income. The son may be an idiot or a spendthrift. He may be tempted to raise money by post obit. If tp these not im probable results we add all the family feuds generated, between the tenant for life and remainder-man, in regard to the manage ment and enjoyment by the former of that estate which was once his own, par ticularly with reference to cutting timber, the disadvantages of thus fettering the dominion will appear greatly to preponde rate. At best, a settlement is a specula tion ; at worst, it is the occasion of distress, profligacy, and domestic discord, ending not unfrequently, as the Chancery Reports bear witness, in obstinate litigation, ruin ous alike to the peace and to the property of the family. Sometimes the father effects an arrangement with his eldest son on his coming of age ; the son stipulating for an immediate provision in the shape of an annuity, the father for a gross sum to satisfy his creditors, or to portion his younger children, and for a re-settlement of the estate. This arrangement, perhaps, is brought about by means, or imposes terms, which, in the eye of equity, render it a fraud upon the son ; and here we have another source of litigation.' Now, what I have here read is exactly that which everybody's experience tells us is the fact, and we have recently had a notable case which exactly answers to that referred to in the last paragraph of this Opinion. The practice of making settlements of this description is mis chievous — leads to endless litigation — and sooner or later the landed classes must sink under it. The Irish proprietors have also another difficulty to contend with, and that is their extravagance. It is said — for I cannot vouch for the fact myself — that they keep too many horses and dogs. I do not mean to say that an Irish gentleman may not spend his rents as he pleases ; but I can say that he can not bodi spend his money and have it too. I think if they would cast their pride on one side, and go honestly to work — if, instead of their young men spending their time ' waiting for a com mission,' they were to go into business, they would be far better and more use fully employed, and they would find that the less humiliating condition of the two. Another bane of Ireland is the prevalence of life interests in landed property there. Under such a system the land can neither be improved nor sold. Now what has the noble Lord at the head of the Government done to wards grappling with all these ques tions? Nothing — absolutely nothing. I think him very unwise in not pro pounding to himself the momentous question, ' What shall be done for Ire land?' The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth has a plan. He entered upon its outline on Friday last. But I doubt whether it has yet taken that distinct form which it must assume in order that the House may take cognisance of it. I admire some of the measures which the right hon. Baronet intimates he would carry into effect, but there are other parts of his proposals which are vague and imprac ticable. I think, if it is believed in Ireland that a Commission is to be ap pointed to take charge of the distressed Unions of the south and west — that the whole thing is to be managed through a new department of the Government, and all without the slightest trouble tp the landlords — that there will be more than ever a clinging to this wretched property in bankrupt estates, and more than ever an indisposition to adopt those measures which are still open to them, in the direction in which the right hon. Baronet wishes to proceed. Therighthon. Baronet stated in his first speech on this topic, that he did not wish the transfer of property to be by individual barter ; and on Friday he stated that he was very much averse to allowing matters to go on in their natural course, for by that means land would be unnaturally cheapened. Well, but upon what conditions would the right hon. Baronet buy land in Ireland ? would it be under the same circum stances, and at the same price, that he would buy an estate in Yorkshire or 170 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 2, Staffordshire? If any sane man goes to the west or south of Ireland to pur chase an estate, he must go on account of the cheapness of the bargain — a cheapness which he hopes will com pensate him for all the disadvantages to which he must necessarily be sub jected in such a purchase. There can be no redemption for that part of Ire land — if it is to be through the transfer of land — except the land take its na tural course, and come so cheap into the market that Englishmen and Scotch men, and Irishmen too having capital, will be willing to purchase it, notwith standing all its disadvantages. [Colonel Dunne: 'Hear, hear 1'] The hon. Member for Portarlington cheers that, as if it were an extraordinary statement. If the hon. Member prefers purchasing what is dear to what is cheap, he is not a very sensible man to legis late for Ireland. If he thinks that a man will go into Galway and pay as much per acre for an estate as he would in England, he is greatly mistaken ; but the fact is, I believe, that not only English and Scotch capital, but that much Irish capital also, would be expended in the purchase of estates in the south and west, if the ends which the right hon. Baronet has in view were facilitated by this House. But we have a case in point which affords us some guidance upon this question, and it is a case with which the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Ripon, are very fami liar. I allude to the case of Stockport in 1842. Owing to a variety of circum stances — I will not go into the question of the Corn-law, as that is settled — but owing to a variety of circumstances, from 1838 to 1842 there was a continued sinking in the condition of Stockport — its property depreciated to a lamentable extent. One man left property, as he thought, worth 80,000/. or 90,000/. Within two years it sold for little more than 20,000/. Since that time the son of one man, then supposed to be a person of large property, has had relief from the parochial funds. In 1842 the amount of the poor-rate aver aged from 7s. to 8s.. in the pound. From November 4, 1841, to May 30, 1842, the rates levied were 6s. in the pound, realising the amount of 19,144/. From January 28, 1843, to August 2 of the same year, the rates levied were 7s. in the pound, and the amount raised was 21,948/. And bear in mind that at that time Stockport was in process of depopulation — many thousands quit ted the place — whole streets were left with scarcely a tenant in them — some public-houses, previously doing a large business, were let for little more than their rates; in fact, Stockport was as fair a representative of distress amongst a manufacturing community as Mayo, Galway, or any western county of Ire land can be at this moment of distress amongst an agricultural community. Now what was done in Stockport ? There was a Commission of Inquiry, which the then Home Secretary ap pointed. They made an admirable report, the last paragraph of which ought to be read by every one who wishes to know the character of the people of Stockport. Mr Twisleton, speaking of them, said diat they were a noble people; and truly the exertions which they made to avoid becoming chargeable upon the rates were heroic. Well now, all this suffering was going on — the workhouses were crowded, the people were emigra ting, there was a general desolation, and if it had not been for the harvest of 1842, which was a good one, and the gradual recovery of trade which followed, nothing in Ireland can be worse than die condition of Stockport would have been. What was the re sult? Property was greatly depre ciated, and much of it changed hands. Something like half the manufacturers failed, and, of course, gave up business altogether. My hon. Friend the Mem ber for Stockport purchased property in the borough at that period, and since then he has laid out not far short of » hundred thousand pounds, in a very large manufacturing establishment in 1849. IRELAND. IV. 171 that town. In fact, the persons who are now carrying on the manufacturing business in Stockport are of a more substantial character than those who were swept away by the calamities of 1842. This is a very sorrowful process. I can feel as much for those persons as any man ; but we must all submit to cir cumstances such as these when they come. There are vicissitudes in all classes of society, and in all occupations in which we may engage ; and when we have, as now in Ireland, a state of things — a grievous calamity not equalled under the sun, — it is the duty of this House not to interfere with the ordinary and natural course of remedy, and not to flinch from what is necessary for the safety of the people by reason of any mistaken sympathy with the owners of cotton mills or with the proprietors of landed estates. Now, I want Parlia ment to remove every obstacle in the way of the free sale of land. I believe that in this policy lies the only security you have for the restoration of the dis tressed districts of Ireland. The ques tion of a Parliamentary title is most important ; but I understand that the difficulty of this arises from the system of entails beyond persons now living, and because you must go back through a long search of sixty years before you can make it quite clear that the title is absolutely secure. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth suggested that the Lord Chancellor should be ousted. I proposed last year that there should be a new court estab lished in Ireland, for the adjudication of cases connected with land, and for no other purpose, and that it should thus relieve the present courts from much of the business with which they are now encumbered. But I do not say that even such a court would effect much good, unless it were very much more speedy in its operations than the exist ing courts. I believe that the present Lord Chancellor is admitted to be as good a Judge as ever sat in the Court of Chancery ; but he is rather timid as a Minister, and inert as a statesman ; and, if I am not mistaken, he was in a great measure responsible for the failure of the Bill for facilitating the sale of encumbered estates last Session. The Government must have known, as well as I do, that such a measure could not succeed, and that the clause which was introduced — on the third reading, I believe — made it impossible to work it. There is another point, with regard to intestate estates. I feel how tenderly one must speak, in this House, upon a question like this. Even the right hon. Member for Tamworth, with all his authority, appeared, when touching on this delicate question of the land, as if he were walking upon eggs which he was very much afraid of breaking. I certainly never heard the right hon. Gentleman steer through so many sinu osities in a case ; and hardly, at last, dared he come to the question, because he was talking about land — this sacred land ! I believe land to have nothing peculiar in its nature which does not belong to other property ; and every thing that we have done with the view of treating land differently from other property has been a blunder— a false course which we must retrace — an error which lies at the foundation of very much of the pauperism and want of employment which so generally prevail. Now, with regard to intestate estates, I am told that the House of Lords will never repeal the law of primogeniture ; but I do not want them to repeal the law of primogeniture in the sense enter tained by some people. I do not want them to enact the system of France, by which a division of property is com pelled. I think that to force the divi sion of property by law is just as con trary to sound principles and natural rights as to prevent its division, as is done by our law. If a man choose to act the unnatural and absurd part of leaving the whole of his property to one child, I should not, certainly, look with respect upon his memory ; but I would not interfere to prevent the free exercise of his will. I think, however, if a man die by chance without a will, 172 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 2, that it is the duty of the Government to set a high moral example, and to divide the property equally among the children of the former owner, or among those who may be said to be his heirs — among those, in fact, who would fairly participate in his personal estate. If that system of leaving all to the eldest were followed out in the case of per sonalty, it would lead to immediate confusion, and, by destroying the whole social system, to a perfect anarchy of property. Why, then, should that course be followed with regard to land ? The repeal of the law would not of necessity destroy the custom; but this House would no longer give its sanction to a practice which is bad; and I believe that gradually there would be a more just appreciation of their duties in this respect by the great body of testators. Then, with regard to life interests ; I would make an alteration there. I think that life-owners should be allowed to grant leases — of course, only on §uch terms as should ensure the successor from fraud-^-and that estates should be permitted to be charged with the sums which were expended in their improve ment. Next, with regard to the registry of land. In many European countries this is done ; and high legal authorities affirm that it would not be difficult to accomplish it in this country. You have your Ordnance Survey. To make the Survey necessary for a perfect registry of deeds throughout the kingdom, would not cost more than gd. an acre ; and if you had your plans engraved, it would be no great addition to the expense. There can be no reason why the land owners should not have that advantage conferred upon them, because, in addi tion to the public benefit, it would in crease the value of their lands by several years' purchase. Mr. Senior has stated, that if there were the same ready means for the transfer of land as at present exist for the transfer of personalty, the value of land would be increased, if I mistake not, by nine years' purchase. This is a subject which I would recom mend to the hon. Member for Bucking hamshire, now distinguished as the ad vocate of die landed interest. Then with regard to stamps, I think that they might be reduced, at any rate for a number of years, to a nominal amount. In fact, I would make any sacrifice for the purpose of changing lands from the hands of insolvent and embarrassed owners .into those of sol vent persons, who would employ it in a manner usefully and advantageously to the country and themselves. There is another proposition with regard to the waste lands of Ireland. The Govern ment made a proposal last year for ob taining those waste lands, and bringing them into cultivation. That I thought injudicious. But they might take those lands at a valuation, and, dividing them into farms and estates of moderate size, might tempt purchasers from different parts of the United Kingdom. By such means I bejieve that a large proportion of the best of the waste lands might be brought into cultivation. I believe that these are the only means by which capital can be attracted to that countiy. The noble Lord at the head of the Government proposes to attract capital to Ireland by a maximum rate and a charge upon the Unions. If that maxi mum rate be all you have to propose, there will be no more probability of capital flowing into those parts of Ire land where it is so much required, than there was at the time when the poor- rate was unknown. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth spoke about emigration; and I think that he was rather unjust, or at least unwise, in his observations with regard to voluntary emigration. Things that are done voluntarily are not always done well; neither are things that are done by the Government ; and I know many cases where Government under takings have failed as eminently as any that have been attempted by private enterprise. But it does not appear to me that there is much wisdom in the project of emigration, although I know that some hon. Gentlemen from Ireland place great faith in it as a remedy. I i849- IRELAND. IV. 173 have endeavoured to ascertain what is the relation of the population to the land in Ireland, and this is what I find. In speaking of the Clifden Union, the Inspectors state — 'In conclusion, we beg to offer our matured opinion that the resources of the Union would, if made available, be amply sufficient for the independent support of its population.' Mr. Hamilton, who was examined be fore the Committee of which I am a member, said, speaking of the Unions of Donegal and Glenties— ' There is no over-population, if those Unions, according to their capabilities, were cultivated as the average of English counties, with the same skill and capital.' And Mr. Twisleton said — ' I did not speak of a redundant popula tion in reference to land, only to capital. The land of Ireland could maintain double its present population.' Then, if that be the case, I am not quite certain that we should be wise in raising sums of money to enable the people to emigrate. The cost of trans porting a family to Australia, or even to Canada, is considerable ; and the ques tion is, whether, with the means which it would require to convey them to a distant shore, they might not be more profitably employed at home. I probably shall be told that 1 pro pose schemes which are a great interfe rence with the rights of property. My opinion is that nothing can be a greater interference and infringement of the rights of property than the laws Which regulate property now. I think that the landowners are under an impression that they have been maintaining great influ ence, political power, an hereditary aris tocracy, and all those other arrange ments which some think should never be named Without reverence and awe ; that they have been accustomed to look at these things, and to fancy that they are worth the price they pay for them. I am of opinion that the disadvantages under which those rights labour through out the United Kingdom are extreme ; but in Ireland the disadvantages are followed by results not known in this country. You speak of interference with pro perty ; but I ask what becomes of the property of the poor man, which consists of his labour ? Take those 4,000,000 persons who live in the dis tressed districts, as described by the right hon. Baronet the member for Tamworth. Their property in labour is almost totally destroyed. There they are— men whom God made and per mitted to come into this world, en dowed with faculties like ourselves, but who are unable to maintain themselves, and must either starve or live upon others. The interference with their property has been enormous — so great as absolutely to destroy it. Now, I ask the landlords of Ireland, whether living in the state in which they have lived for years is not infinitely Worse than that which I have proposed for them ? Threatening letters by the post at breakfast-time — now and then the aim of the assassin—poor-rates which are a grievous interference With the rights of property, and this rate in aid, which the gentlemen of Ulster declare to be directly opposed to all the rights of property— what can be worse? I shall be told that I am injuring aristocratical and territorial influence. What is that in Ireland worth to you now? What is Ireland worth to you at ali? Is she not the very symbol and token of your disgrace and humiliation to the whole World ? Is She not an incessant trouble to your Legislature, and die source of increased expense to your people, already over-taxed? Is not your legislation all at fault in What it has hitherto done for that country? The people of Ulster say that we shall weaken the Union. It has been one of the misfortunes Of the legislation of this House that there has been no honest attempt to make a union with the whole people of Ireland up to this time. Wb have had a union with i74 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. Ulster, but there has been no union with the whole people of Ireland, and there never can be a union between the Government and the people whilst such a state of things exists as has for many years past prevailed in the south and west of Ireland. The condition of Ireland at this mo ment is this — the rich are menaced with rain, and ruin from which, in their present course, they cannot escape ; whilst the poor are menaced with star vation and death. There are hon. Gentlemen in this House, and there are other landed proprietors in Ireland, who are as admirable in the perform ance of all their social duties as any men to be found in any part of the world. We have had brilliant examples mentioned in this House; but those men themselves are suffering their cha racters to be damaged by the present condition of Ireland, and are under going a process which must end in their own rain ; because this demoralisation and pauperisation will go on in an ex tending circle, and will engulf the whole property of Ireland in one common ruin, unless something more be done than passing poor-laws and proposing rates in aid. Sir, if ever there were an opportunity for a statesman, it is this. This is the hour undoubtedly, and we want the man. The noble Lord at the head of the Government has done many things for his countiy, for which I thank him as heartily as any man — he has shown on some occasions as much moral courage as it is necessary, in the state of public opinion, upon any question, for a statesman to show ; but I have been much disappointed that, upon this Irish question, he has seemed to shrink from a full consideration of the diffi culty, and from a resolution to meet it fairly. The character of the present, the character of any Government under such circumstances, must be at stake. The noble Lord cannot, in his position, remain inactive. Let him be as inno cent as he may, he can never justify himself to the country, or to the world, or to posterity, if he remains at the head of this Imperial Legislature and is still unable, or unwilling, to bring forward measures for the restoration of Ireland. I would address the same language also to the noble Lord at the head of the Irish Government, who has won, I must say, the admiration of the population of this country for the temper and manner in which he has administered the go vernment of Ireland. But he must bear in mind that it is not the highest effort of statesmanship to preserve the peace in a country where there are very few men anxious to go to war, and to preserve the peace, too, with 50,000 armed men at his command, and the whole power of this empire to back him. All that may be necessary, and peace at all hazards must be secured; but if that distinguished Nobleman in tends to be known hereafter as a states man with regard to his rale in Ireland, he must be prepared to suggest mea sures to the Government of a more practical and directly operative cha racter than any he has yet initiated. Sir, I am ashamed, I must say, of the course which we have taken upon this question. Look at that great sub scription that was raised three years ago for Ireland. There was scarcely a part of the globe from which sub scriptions did not come. The Pope, as was very natural, subscribed— the head of the great Mahometan empire, the Grand Seignior, sent his thousand pounds — the uttermost parts of the earth sent in their donations. A tribe of Red Indians on the American con tinent sent their subscription ; and I have it on good authority that even the slaves on a plantation in one of the Carolinas subscribed their sorrowful mite that the miseries of Ireland might be relieved. The whole world looked upon the condition of Ireland, and helped to mitigate her miseries. What can we say to all those contributors, who, now that they have paid, must be anxious to know if anything is done to prevent a recurrence of these calamities? We must tell them with blushes that 1849. IRELAND. IV. 175 nothing has been done, but that we are still going on with the poor-rates, and that, having exhausted the patience of the people of England in Parliamentary grants, we are coming now with rates in aid, restricted altogether to the pro perty of Ireland. That is what we have to tell them ; whilst we have to acknowledge that our . Constitution, "boasted of as it has been for genera tions past, utterly fails to grapple with this great question. Hon. Gentlemen turn with triumph to neighbouring countries, and speak in glowing terms of our glorious Con stitution. It is true, that abroad thrones and dynasties have been overturned, whilst in England peace has reigned undisturbed. But take all the lives that have been lost in the last twelve months in Europe amidst the convulsions that had occurred — take all the cessation of trade, the destruction of industry, all the crushing of hopes and hearts, and they will not compare for an instant with the agonies which have been en dured by the population of Ireland under your glorious Constitution. And there are those who now say that this is the ordering of Providence. I met an Irish gentleman the other night, and, speaking upon the subject, he said that he saw no remedy, but that it seemed as if the present state of things were the mode by which Providence intended to solve the question of Irish difficulties. But let us not lay these calamities at the door of Providence; it were sinful in us, of all men, to do so. God has blessed Ireland — and does still bless her — in position, in soil, in cli mate ; He has not withdrawn His pro mises, nor are they unfulfilled ; there is still the sunshine and the shower ; still the seed-time and the harvest ; and the affluent bosom of the earth yet offers sustenance for man. But man must do his part — we must do our part — we must retrace our steps — we must shun the blunders, and, 1 would even say, the crimes of our past legislation. We must free the land, and then we shall discover, and not till then, that in dustry, hopeful and remunerated — in dustry, free and inviolate, is the only sure foundation on which can be reared the enduring edifice of union and of peace. -S-:-:«K- IRELAND. v. HABEAS CORPUS SUSPENSION BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 17, 1866. [The Fenian Conspiracy and threatened Insurrection in Ireland compelled the Govern ment to introduce a Bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. It was brought in suddenly, the House meeting on Saturday to consider it.] I owe an apology to the Irish Mem bers for -stepping in to make an obser vation to the House on this question. My strong interest in the affairs of their country, ever since I came into Parlia ment, will be my sufficient excuse. The Secretary of State, on the part of the Government of which he is a Member, has called us together on an unusual day and at an unusual hour, to consider a proposition of the greatest magnitude, and which we are informed is one of extreme urgency. If it be so, I hope it will not be understood that we are here merely to carry out the behests of the Administration ; and that we are to be permitted, if we choose, to discuss this measure, and if possible to say some thing which may mitigate the apparent harshness of the course which the Government feels itself compelled to pursue. It is now more than twenty-two years since I was first permitted to take my seat in this House. During that time I have on many occasions, with great favour, been allowed to address it, but I declare that during the whole of that period I have never risen to speak here under so strong a feeling, as a Member of the House, of shame and of humilia tion, as that by which I find myself oppressed at this moment. The Sec retary of State proposes — as the right hon. Gentlemen himself has said — to deprive no inconsiderable portion of the subjects of the Queen — our countryrnen, within the United Kingdom — of the commonest, of the most precious, and of the most sacred right of the English Constitution, the right to their personal freedom. From die statement of the Secretary of State it is clear that this is not asked to be done, or required to be done, with reference only to a small section of the Irish people. He has named great counties, wide districts, whole provinces, over which this alleged and undoubted disaffection has spread, and has proposed that five or six mil lions of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom shall suffer die loss of that right of personal freedom that is guaranteed to all Her Majesty's subjects by the Constitution of these realms. Now, I do not believe tiiat the Sec retary of State has overstated his case for the purpose of inducing the House to consent to his proposition. I believe that if the majority of the people of FEB. 17, l866. IRELAND. V. 177 Ireland, counted fairly out, had their will, and if they had the power, they would unmoor the island from its fastenings in the deep, and move it at least 2,000 miles to the West. And I believe, further, that if by conspiracy, or insurrection, or by that open agita tion to which alone I ever would give any favour or consent, they could shake off the authority, I will not say of the English Crown, but of the Imperial Parliament, they would gladly do so. An hon. Member from Ireland a few nights ago referred to the character of the Irish people. He said, and I believe it is true, that there is no Christian nation with which we are acquainted amongst the people of which crime of the ordinary character, as we reckon it in this country, is so rare as it is amongst his countrymen. He might have said, also, that there is no people — whatever they may be at home — more industrious than his countrymen in every other country but their own. He might have said more ; that they are a people of a cheerful and joyous temperament. He might have said more than this — that they are singularly grateful for kindnesses shown to them, and that of all the people of our race they are filled with the strongest sentiment of veneration. And yet, with such materials and with such a people, after centuries of government — after sixty-five years of government by this House — you have them embittered against your rule, and anxious only to throw off the authority of the Crown and Queen of these realms. Now, this is not a single occasion we are discussing. This is merely an access of the complaint Ireland has been suf fering under during the lifetime of the oldest man in this House, that of chronic insurrection. No man can deny this. I dare say a large number of the Members of this House, at the time to which the right hon. Member for Buck inghamshire referred, heard the same speech on the same subject, from the same Minister to whom we have listened to-day. [Sir G. Grey: 'No!'] I cer tainly thought I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department make a speech before on the same question, but he was a Minister of the Government on whose behalf a similar speech was made on the occasion referred to, and no doubt concurred in every word that was uttered by his Colleague. Sixty-five years ago this country and this Parliament undertook to govern Ireland. I will say nothing of the manner in which that duty was brought upon us — except this — that it was by proceedings disgraceful and corrupt to the last degree. I will say nothing of the pretences under which it was brought about but this — that the English Par liament and people, and the Irish people too, were told, that if they once got rid of the Irish Parliament they would de throne for ever Irish factions, and that with a united Parliament we should become a united, and stronger, and happier people. During these sixty- five years — and on this point I ask for the attention of the right hon. Gentle man (Mr. Disraeli) who has just spoken — there are only three considerable measures which Parliament has passed in the interests of Ireland. One of them was the measure of 1829, for the emancipation of the Catholics and to permit them to have seats in this House. But that measure, so just, so essential, and which, of course, is not ever to be recalled, was a measure which the chief Minister of the day, a great soldier, and a great judge of military matters, ad mitted was passed under the menace of, and only because of, the danger of civil war. The other two measures to which I have referred are that for the relief of the poor, and that for the sale of the incumbered estates ; and those measures were introduced to the House and passed through the House in the emergency of a famine more severe than any that has desolated any Christian country of the world within the last four hundred years. Except on these two emergencies I appeal to every Irish Member, and to 178 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 17, every English Member who has paid any attention to the matter, whether the statement is not true that this Parlia ment has done nothing for the people of Ireland. And, more than that, their complaints have been met — complaints of their sufferings have been met — often by denial, often by insult, often by con tempt. And within the last few years we have heard from this veiy Treasury bench observations with regard to Ire land which no friend of Ireland or of England, and no Minister of the Crown, ought to have uttered with re gard to that country. Twice in my Parliamentary life this thing has been done — at least by the close of this day will have been done — and measures of repression — measures for the suspension of the civil rights of the Irish people — have been brought into Parliament and passed with extreme and unusual rapidity. I have not risen to blame the Secre tary of State or to blame his Colleagues for the act of to-day. There may be circumstances to justify a proposition of this kind, and I am not here to deny that these circumstances now exist ; but what I complain of is this : there is no statesmanship merely in acts of force and acts of repression. And more than that, I have not observed since I have been in Parliament anything on this Irish question that approaches to the dignity of statesmanship. There has been, I admit, an improved ad ministration in Ireland. There have been Lord-Lieutenants anxious to be just, and there is one there now who is probably as anxious to do justice as any man. We have observed generally in the recent Trials a better tone and temper than were ever witnessed under similar circumstances in Ireland before. But if I go back to the Ministers who have sat on the Treasury bench since I first came into this House— Sir Robert Peel first, then Lord John Russell, then Lord Aberdeen, then Lord Derby, then Lord Palmerston, then Lord Derby again, then Lord Palmerston again, and now Earl Russell— I say that with regard to all these men, there has not been any approach to anything that history will describe as statesmanship on the part of the English Government towards Ireland. There were Coercion Bills in abundance — Arms Bills Session after Session — lamentations like that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) that the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was not made perpetual by a clause which he laments was repealed. There have been Acts for the sus pension of the Habeas Corpus Act, like that which we are now discussing ; but there has been no statesmanship. Men, the most clumsy and brutal, can do these things ; but we want men of higher temper — men of higher genius— men of higher patriotism to deal with the affairs of Ire land. I should like to know whether those statesmen who hold great offices havethemselves comprehended the nature of this question. If they have not, they have been manifestly ignorant ; and if they have comprehended it and have not dealt with it, they have concealed that which they knew from the people, and evaded the duty they owed to their Sovereign. I do not want to speak disrespectfully of men in office. It is not my custom in this House. I know something of the worrying labours to which they are subjected, and I know not how from day to day they bear the burden of the labour imposed upon them ; but still I lament that those who wear the garb — enjoy the emoluments — and I had almost said usurp the dignity of statesmanship, sink themselves merely into respectable and honourable admin istrators, when there is a whole nation under the sovereignty of the Queen calling for all their anxious thoughts — calling for the highest exercise of the highest qualities of the statesman. I put the question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is the only man of this Government whom I have heard of late years who has spoken as if he comprehended this question, and he made a speech in the last Session of Parliament which was not without its influence both in England and in Ire- 1866. IRELAND. 179 land. I should like to ask him whether this Irish question is above the stature of himself and of his Colleagues ? If it be, I ask them to come down from the high places which they occupy, and try to leam the art of legislation and gov ernment before they practise it. I myself believe, if we could divest our selves of the feelings engendered by party strife, we might come to some better result. Take the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is there in any legisla tive assembly in the world a man, as the world judges, of more transcen dent capacity ? I will say even, is there a man with a more honest wish to do good to the country in which he occu pies so conspicuous a place ? Take the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the leader of the Opposition — is there in any legislative assembly in the world, at this moment, a man lead ing an Opposition of more genius for his position, who has given proof in every way but one in which proof can be given that he is competent to the highest duties of the highest offices of the State? Well, but these men — great men whom we on this side and you on that side, to a large extent, admire and follow — fight for office, and the result is they sit alternately, one on this side and one on that. But suppose it were possible for these men, with their intellects, with their far-reaching vision, to examine this question tho roughly, and to say for once, whether this leads to office and to the miserable notoriety that men call fame which springs from office, or not, ' If it be possible, we will act with loyalty to the Sovereign and justice to the people ; and if it be possible, we .will make Ireland a strength and not a weakness to the British Empire.' It is from this fighting with party, and for party, and for the gains which party gives, that there is so little result from the great intellect of such men as there. Like the captive Samson of old, — ' They grind in brazen fetters, under task, With their Heaven-gifted strength — ' and the country and the world gain little by those faculties which God has given them for the blessing of the country and the world. The Secretary of State and the right hon. Gentleman opposite have referred, even in stronger language, to the un happy fact that much of what now exists in Ireland has been brought there from the United States of America. That is not a fact for us to console ourselves with ; it only adds to the gravity and the difficulty of this ques tion. You may depend upon it that if the Irish in America, having left this country, settled there with so strong a hostility to us, they have had their reasons— and if being, there with that feeling of affection for their native countiy which in all other cases in which we are not concerned we admire and reverence, they interfere in Ireland and, stir up there the sedition that now exists, depend upon it there is in the condition of Ireland a state of things which greatly favours their attempts. There can be no continued fire without fuel, and all the Irish in America, and all the citizens of America, united to gether, with all their organization and all their vast resources, would not raise the very slightest flame of sedition or of insurrectionary movement in England or in Scotland. I want to know why they can do it in Ireland ? Are you to say, as some people say in America and in Jamaica when speaking of the black man, that ' Nothing can be made of the Irishman'? Everything can be made of him in every country but his own. When he has passed through the American school — I speak of him as a child, or in the second generation of the Irish emigrant in that country — he is as industrious, as frugal, as independent, as loyal, as good a citizen of the American Republic, as any man bom within the dominions of that Power. Why is it not so in Ire land? I have asked the question be fore, and I will ask it again — it is a pertinent question, and it demands an answer. Why is it that no Scotchman i8o SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 17, who leaves Scotland — and the Scotch have been taunted and ridiculed for being so ready to leave their country for a better climate and a better soil — how comes it, I ask, that no Scotchman who emigrates to the United States, and no Englishman who plants himself there, cherishes the smallest hostility to the people, to the institutions, or to the Government of his native country? Why does every Irishman who leaves his country and goes to the United States immediately settle himself down there, resolved to better his condition in life, but with a feeling of ineradicable hatred to the laws and institutions of the land of his birth ? Is not this a fit question for statesmanship ? If the Secretary of State, since his last measure was brought in, now eighteen years ago, had had time, in the multiplicity of his duties, to con sider this question; instead of now moving for the suspension of the Ha beas Corpus Act, he might possibly have been rejoicing at the universal loyalty which prevailed, not throughout Great Britain only, but throughout the whole population of Ireland. I spent two autumns in Ireland in the years 1849 and 1852, and I recollect making a speech in this House not long after wards, which some persons thought was not very wide of the mark. I recom mended the Ministers of that time to take an opportunity to hold an Irish Session of the Imperial Parliament — to have no great questions discussed con nected with the ordinary matters which are brought before us, but to keep Par liament to the consideration of this Irish question solely, and to deal with those great matters which are constant sources of complaint ; and I said that a Session that was so devoted to such a blessed and holy work, would be a Session, if it were successful, that would stand forth in all our future history as one of the noblest which had ever passed in the annals of the Imperial Parliament. Now, Sir, a few days ago everybody in this House, with two or three excep tions, was taking an oath at that table. It is called the Oath of Allegiance. It is meant at once to express loyalty and to keep men loyal. I do not think it generally does bind men to loyalty, if they have not loyalty without it. I hold loyalty to consist, in a countiy like this, as much in doing justice to the people as in guarding the Crown ; for I believe there is no guardianship of the Crown in a countiy like this, where the Crown is not supposed to rest abso lutely upon force, so safe as that of which we know more in our day pro bably than has been known in former periods of our history, when the occu pant of the Throne is respected, admired, and loved by the general people. Now, how comes it that these great statesmen whom I have named, with all their Col leagues, some of them as eminent almost as their leaders, have never tried what they could do — have never shown their loyalty to the Crown by endeavouring to make the Queen as safe in the hearts of the people of Ireland as she is in the hearts of the people of England and of Scotland ? Bear in mind that the Queen of Eng land can do almost nothing in these matters. By our Constitution the Crown can take no direct part in them. The Crown cannot direct the policy of the Government; nay, the Crown cannot, without the consent of this House, even select its Ministers ; therefore the Crown is helpless in this matter. And we have in this country a Queen, who, in all the civilized nations of the world, is looked upon as a model of a Sovereign, and yet her name and fame are discredited and dishonoured by circumstances such as those which have twice during her reign called us together to agree to a proposition like that which is brought before us to-day. There is an instructive anecdote to be found in the annals of the Chinese Em pire. In a remote province there was an insurrection. The Emperor put down the insurrection, but he abased and humbled himself before the people, and said that if he had been guilty of neglect he acknowledged his guilt, and he hum- 1 866. IRELAND. V. bled himself before those on whom he had brought the evil of an insurrection in one of his provinces. The Queen of these realms is not so responsible. She cannot thus humble herself; but I say that your statesmen for the last forty — for the last sixty — years are thus guilty, and that they ought to humble them selves before the people of this country for their neglect. But I have heard from Members in this House — I have seen much writing in newspapers — and I have heard of speeches elsewhere, in which some of us, who advocate what we believe to be a great and high mo rality in public affairs, are charged with dislike to the institutions, and even dis loyalty to the dynasty which rules in England. There can be nothing more offensive, nothing more unjust, nothing more utterly false. We who ask Par liament, in dealing with Ireland, to deal with it upon the unchangeable principles of justice, are the friends of the people, and the really loyal advisers and sup porters of the Throne. All history teaches us that it is not in human nature that men should be con tent under any system of legislation, and of institutions such as exist in Ireland. You may pass this Bill, you may put the Home Secretary's five hundred men into gaol — you may do more than this, you may suppress the conspiracy and put down the insurrec tion, but the moment it is suppressed there will still remain the germs of this malady, and from those germs will grow up as heretofore another crop of insur rection and another harvest of misfor tune. And it may be that those who sit here eighteen years after this moment will find another Ministry and another Secretary of State ready to propose to you another administration of the same ever-failing and ever-poisonous medicine. I say there is a mode of making Ireland loyal. I say that the Parliament of England having abolished the Parlia ment of Ireland is doubly bound to ex amine what that mode is, and, if it can discover it, to adopt it. I say that the Minister who occupies office in this countiy, merely that he may carry on the daily routine of administration, who dares not grapple with this question, who dares not go into Opposition, and who will sit anywhere except where he can tell his mind freely to the House and to the country, may have a high position in the country, but he is not a statesman, nor is he worthy of the name. Sir, I shall not oppose the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman. The cir cumstances, I presume, are such that the course which is about to be pursued is perhaps the only merciful course for Ireland. But I suppose it is not the intention of the Government, in the case of persons who are arrested, and against whom any just complaint can be made, to do anything more than that which the ordinary law permits, and that when men are brought to trial they will be brought to trial with all the fairness and all the advantages which the ordinary law gives. I should say what was most unjust to the Gentlemen sitting on that (the Treasury) bench, if I said aught else than that I believe they are as honestly disposed to do right in this matter as I am and as I have ever been. I implore them, if they can, to shake off the trammels of doubt and fear with regard to this question, and to say something that may be soothing — something that may give hope to Ireland. I voted the other night with the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue). We were in a very small minority. [' Hear, hear.'] Yes, I have often been in small minorities. The hon. Gentle man, would have been content with a word of kindness and of sympathy, not for conspiracy, but for the people of Ireland. That word was not inserted in the Queen's speech, and to-night the Home Secretary has made a speech urging the House to the course which, I presume, is about to be pursued ; but he did not in that speech utter a single sentence with regard to a question which lies behind, and is greater and deeper than that which is discussed. 182 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. I hope, Sir, that if Ministers feel themselves bound to take this course of suspending the common rights of per sonal freedom to a whole nation, at least they will not allow this debate to close without giving to us and to that nation some hope that before long mea sures will be considered and will be introduced which will tend to create the same loyalty in Ireland that exists in Great Britain. If every man outside the walls of this House who has the interest of the whole Empire at heart were to speak here, what would he say to this House ? Let not one day elapse, let not another Session pass, until you have done something to wipe off this blot — for blot it is upon the reign of the Queen, and scandal it is to the civi lization and to the justice of the people of this country. IRELAND. VI. DUBLIN, OCTOBER 30, 1866. [Mr. Bright was invited to a Public Banquet in Dublin. The invitation was signed by more than twenty Members of Parliament, and by a large number of influential Members of the Liberal Party in Ireland. This speech was spoken at the Banquet. The O'Donoghue was in the Chair.] I feel myself more embarrassed than I can well describe at the difficult but honourable position in which I find myself to-night. I am profoundly moved by the exceeding and generous kindness with which you have received me, and all I can do is to thank you for it, and to say how grateful to my heart it is that such a number as I see before me — I will say of my countrymen — have approved generally of the political course which I have pursued. But I may assure you that the difficulty of this position is not at all of my seeking. I heard during the last Session of Par liament that if I was likely to come to Ireland during the autumn, it was not improbable that I should be asked to some banquet of this kind in this city. I had an intention of coming, but being moved by this kindness or menace, I changed my mind, and spent some weeks in Scotland instead of Ireland. When I found from the newspapers that an invitation was being signed, asking me to come here, I wrote to my honourable friend, Sir John Gray, to ask him if he would be kind enough to put an extinguisher upon the project, inasmuch as I was not intending to cross the Channel. He said that the matter had proceeded so far that it was impossible to interfere with it — that it must take its natural course; and the result was that I received an invitation signed, I think, by about one hundred and forty names, amongst whom there were not less, I believe, than twenty-two Members of the House of Commons. Well, as you will probably imagine, I felt that this invitation was of such a nature that, although it was most difficult to accede to it, it was impos sible to refuse it. This accounts for my being here to-night, and is a simple explanation of what has taken place. I said amongst the signatures were the names of not less than twenty-two Members of the House of Commons. I speak with grief when I say that one of our friends who signed that invi tation is no longer with us. I had not the pleasure of a long acquaintance with Mr. Dillon, but I shall take this opportunity of saying that during the last Session of Parliament I formed a veiy high opinion of his character. There was that in his eye and in the 184 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 30, tone of his voice — in his manner alto gether, which marked him for an hon ourable and a just man. I venture to say that his sad and sudden removal is a great loss to Ireland. I believe amongst all her worthy sons, Ireland has had no worthier and no nobler son than John Blake Dillon. I shall not be wrong if I assume that the ground of my visit to Dublin is to be found first in the sympathy which I have always felt and expressed for the condition, and for the wrongs, and for the rights of the people of Ireland, and probably also because I am supposed, in some degree, to represent some amount of the opinion in England, which is also favourable to the true interests of this island. . The Irish question is a question that has often been discussed, and yet it remains at this day as much a question as it has been for centuries past. The Parliament of Kilkenny, — a Parliament that sat a very long time ago, if indeed it was a Parliament at all, — it was a Parliament that sat about five hundred years ago, which proposed, I believe, to inflict a very heavy penalty if any Irish man's horse was found grazing on any Englishman's land, — this Parliament left on record a question, which it may be worth our while to consider to-night. It put this question to the King, ' How comes it to pass that the King was never the richer for Ireland ? ' We, five hundred years afterwards, venture to ask this question, ' Why is it that the Queen, or the Crown, or the United Kingdom, or the Empire, is never the richer for Ireland?' — and if you will permit me I will tiy to give you as clearly as I can something like an answer to that very old question. What it may be followed by is this, How is it that we, the Imperial Parlia ment, cannot act so as to bring about in Ireland contentment and tranquillity, and a solid union between Ireland and Great Britain? And that means, further, How can we improve the con dition and change the minds of the people of Ireland ? Some say (I have heard many who say it in England, and I am afraid there are Irishmen also who would say it), that there is some radi cal defect in the Irish character which prevents the condition of Ireland being so satisfactory as is the condition of England and of Scotland. Now, I am inclined to believe that whatever there is that is defective in any'portion of the Irish people comes not from their race, but from their history, and from the conditions to which they have been subjected. I am told by those in authority that in Ireland there is a remarkable absence of crime. I have heard since I came to Dublin, from those well acquainted with the facts, that there is probably no great city in the world— in the civilized and Christian world — of equal popula tion with the city in which we are now assembled, where there is so little crime committed. And I find that the por tion of the Irish people which has found a home in the United States has in the period of sixteen years — between 1848 and 1864 — remitted about 13,000,000/. sterling to their friends and relatives in Ireland. I am bound to place these facts in opposition to any statements that I hear as to any radical de fects of the Irish character. I say that it would be much more probable that the defect lies in the Government and in the law. But there are some others who say that the great misfor tune of Ireland is in the existence of the noxious race of political agitators. Well, as to that I may state, that the most distinguished political agitators that have appeared during the last hun dred years in Ireland are Grattan and O'Connell, and I should say that he must be either a veiy stupid or a very base Irishman who would wish to erase the achievements of Grattan and O'Con nell from the annals of his country. But some say (and this is not an uncommon thing) — some say that the priests of the popular Church in Ireland have been the cause of much discontent. I believe there is no class of men in Ireland who have a deeper interest in a 1866. IRELAND. VI. 185 prosperous and numerous community than the priests of the Catholic Church; and further, I believe that no men have suffered more— have suffered more, I mean, in mind and in feeling — from witnessing the miseries and the desola tion which during the last century (to go no farther back) have stricken and afflicted the Irish people. But some others say that there is no ground of complaint, because the laws and institutions of Ireland are, in the main, the same as the laws and institu tions of England and Scotland. They say, for example, that if there be an Established Church in Ireland there is one in England and one in Scotland, and that Nonconformists are very nu merous both in England and in Scot land ; but they seem to forget this fact, that the Church in England or the Church in Scotland is not in any sense a foreign Church —that it has not been imposed in past times, and is not main tained by force — that it is not in any degree the symbol of conquest — that it is not the Church of a small minority, absorbing the ecclesiastical revenues and endowments of a whole kingdom; and they omit to remember or to ac knowledge that if any Government attempted to plant by force the Epis copal Church in Scotland or the Catho lic Church in England, the disorders and discontent which have prevailed in Ireland would be witnessed with tenfold intensity and violence in Great Britain. And these persons whom I am describ ing also say that the land laws in Ireland are the same as the land laws in Eng land. It would be easy to show that the land laws in England are bad enough, and that but for the outlet of the popu lation, afforded by our extraordinary manufacturing industry, the condition of England would in all probability become quite as bad as the condition of Ireland has been; but if the coun tries differ with regard to land and the management of it in their customs, may it not be reasonable that they should also differ in their laws ? In Ireland the landowner is the crea ture of conquest, not of conquest of eight hundred years ago, but of conquest completed only two hundred years ago ; and it may be well for us to remember, and for all Englishmen to remember, that succeeding that transfer of the land to the new-comers from Great Britain, there followed a system of law, known by the name of the Penal Code, of the most ingenious cruelty, and such as, I believe, has never in modem times been inflicted on any Christian people. Un happily, on this account, the wound which was opened by the conquest has never been permitted to be closed, and thus, we have had landowners in Ireland of a different race, of a different religion, and of different ideas from the great bulk of the people, and there has been a constant and bitter war between the owners and occupiers of the soil. Now, up to this point I suppose that even the gentlemen who were dining together the other evening in Belfast would pro bably agree with me, because what I have stated is mere matter of notorious history, and to be found in every book which has treated of the course of Irish affairs during the last two hundred 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 factions, and torn by these factions at least in the North as much as in the South ; and I think they would be doing less than justice to the inhabitants of the North if they said that they had in any de gree come short of the people of the South in the intensity of their passionate feelings with regard to their Church. But Ireland has been more than this — it has been a land of evictions — a word which, I suspect, is scarcely known in any other civilized country. It is a country from which thousands of families have been driven by the will of the landowners and the power of the law. It is a country where have existed, to a great extent, those dread tribunals known by the name of common secret societies, by which, in pursuit of what some men have thought to be justice, i86 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 30, there have been committed crimes of appalling 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 centu ries past — it is a country in which a famine of the most desolating character has prevailed even during our own time. I think I was told in 1849, as I stood in the burial-ground at Skib- bereen, 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 greater emigration by 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 wrong, out of which has grown a state of chronic insurrection ; and at this very moment when I speak, the general safeguard of constitutional li berty is withdrawn, and we meet in this hall, and I speak here to-night, rather by the forbearance and permis sion of the Irish executive than under the protection of the common safe guards of the rights and liberties of the people of the United Kingdom. I venture to say that this is a miser able and a humiliating picture to draw of this country. Bear in mind that I am not speaking of Poland suffering under the conquest of Russia. There is a gentleman, now a candidate for an Irish county, who is very great upon the wrongs 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 Hun gary, or of Venice as she was under the rule of Austria, or of the Greeks under the dominion of the Turk, but I am speaking of Ireland — part of the United Kingdom — part of that which boasts itself to be the most civilized and the most Christian nation in 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 ex periment and development. You have had the country gentleman in 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 supported by the law, even to the ex tent, 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 principles of the Tory party have had a more entire and complete opportunity for their trial than they have had within the limits of this island. And yet what has hap pened ? This, surely. That the king dom has been continually weakened — that the harmony of the empire has been disturbed, and that the mischief has not been confined to the United Kingdom, but has spread to the Colo nies. And at this moment, as we know by every arrival from the United States, the colony of Canada is ex posed to danger of invasion — that it is forced to keep on foot soldiers which it otherwise would not want, and to involve itself in expenses which threaten to be ruinous 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 conclu sion are we to come to ? Is it that the law which rules in Ireland is bad, but the people good; or that the law is good, but the people bad? Now, let 1 866. IRELAND. VI. 187 us, if we can, get rid for a moment of Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, Pro testantism, and Orangeism on the one hand, and of Catholicism, Romanism, and 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 great evil in your countiy. I shall ask you 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 affect the means of life and the comforts of the people. I shall not blame the bishops and clergy of the Established Church. There may be, and I doubt not there are amongst them, many pious and devoted men, who labour to the utmost of their power to do good in the district which is committed to their care ; but I ven ture to say this, that if they were all good and all pious, it would not in a national point of view compensate for this one fatal error — the error of their existence as the ministers of an Es tablished Protestant Church in Ireland. Every man of them is necessarily 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 people 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 own country — and that for the first time the English people 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 course, there was created a great gulf between 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 eveiy country. I am told — you can answer it if I am wrong — that it is not common in Ireland now to give leases to tenants, especially to Catholic tenants. If that be so, then 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 know, have been made by the landowners, and many proposi tions for the advantage of the tenants have unfortunately been too little con sidered by Parliament. The result is that you have bad farming, bad dwell ing-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 flee ing from your country and seeking a refuge in a distant land. On this point I wish to refer to a letter which I re ceived a few days ago from a most esteemed citizen of Dublin. He told me that he believed that a very large portion of what he called the poor, amongst Irishmen, sympathized with any scheme or any proposition that was adverse to the Imperial Government. He said further, that the people here are rather in 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 we consider how many Irishmen have found a refuge in 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. You know that the followers of Mahommed, when they pray, turn their faces towards Mecca. When the Irish peasant asks for food, and freedom, and blessing, his SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 30, eye follows the setting sun ; the aspira tions of his heart reach beyond the wide Atlantic, and in spirit he grasps hands with the great Republic of die West. If this be so, I say, then, that the disease is not only serious, but it is even des perate ; 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 not be worth while to change the sentiments and improve the condition of the Irish 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 that the present occupants of the livings. should not, during their lifetime, be disturbed; but if the principle of the abolition of the State Church were once fixed and accepted, it would not be diffi cult to arrange the details that would be satisfactory to the people of Ireland. 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 system done in Scot land ? What has. it done amongst the Nonconformists of England ? What has it done amongst the population of Wales ? and what has it done ¦ amongst the Catholic population of your own Ireland ? In my opinion, the abolition of the Established Church would give Protestantism itself another chance. I believe there has been in Ireland no other enemy of Protestantism so inju rious as the Protestant State Establish ment. It has been loaded for two hundred years with the sins of bad government and bad laws, and whatever may have been the beauty and the holi ness of its doctrine or of its professors, it has not been able to hold its ground, loaded as it has been by the sins of a bad government. One effect of the Established Church has been this, the making Catholicism in Ireland not only a faith but 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 if honest Protestantism has nothing to fear from the changes that I would recommend, what has the honest landowner to fear? The history of Europe and America for the last one hundred years affords scarcely any picture more painful than that which is afforded by the landowners of this kingdom. The Irish landowner has been different from every other land owner, for the bulk of his land has only been about half cultivated, and he has had 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. I would like to ask, what can be much worse than this? If in this country fifty 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 might have complained, would in all probability have been richer and happier than he has been. What is the first remedy which you would propose? Clearly this — that which is the most easily applicable and which would most speedily touch the 1866. IRELAND. VI. condition of the country. It is this — that the property which the tenant shall invest or create in his farm shall be secured to the tenant by law. I believe that if Parliament were fairly to enact this it would make a change in the whole temper of the country. I recol lect 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 farm-house, I think, that I had seen since leaving Dublin. He lived on his own farm, which he had bought fifteen years before. The house was a house which he had himself built. He was " venerable old man, and we had some very interesting conversation with him. I asked how it was he had so good a house ? He said the farm 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 farmers 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 result ? ' The old man almost sprang out of his chair, and said, ' Sir, if you will give us that en couragement, we will bate 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 ques tion; and I maintain that the interests of the public require that Parliament should secure to the tenant the property which he has invested in his farm. But I would not stop here. There is another, and what I should call a more permanent and far-reaching 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 provide for, and aid in, their restoration to it by all measures of justice. Why should we tolerate in Ireland the law of primo geniture ? Why should we tolerate the system of entails? Why should 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 become 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 countries 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 description of property in the kingdom. No doubt your Landed Es tates Court and your Record of Titles Act were good measures, but they were good because they were in the direction that I want to travel farther in. But I would go farther than that; I would deal with the question of absen teeism. 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 estates in Ireland belonging to the English nobility, for the purpose of selling them on easy terms to the occu piers of the farms and to the tenantry of Ireland. Now, letmebefairly understood. I am not proposing to tax absentees ; I am not proposing to take any of their property from them ; but I propose this, that a Parliamentary Commission should be empowered to treat for the purchase of those large estates with a view of selling them to the tenantiy of Ireland. Now, here are some of them — the pre sent Prime Minister Lord Derby, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Mar quis of Hertford, the Marquis of Bath, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Devonshire, and many others. They have estates in Ireland ; many of them, I dare say, are just as well managed as any other 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 190 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 30, in Ireland, that it would be infinitely better in a conservative sense, than that they should belong to great proprietors living out of the countiy. I have said that the disease is des perate, and that the remedy must be searching. I assert that the present system of 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 com miseration to the whole world, and a discredit to the United Kingdom, of which it forms =>, part. It is a land of many sorrows. Men fight for supre macy, and call it Protestantism; 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 might reach them. I have often asked myself whe ther patriotism is dead in Ireland. Can not all the people of Ireland see that the calamities of their country are the creatures of the law, and if that be so, that just laws only can remove these calamities ? If Irishmen were united — if your 105 Members were for the most part agreed, you might do almost anything that you liked — you might do- it even in the present Parliament ; but if you are dis united, then I know not how you can gain anything from a Parliament created as the Imperial Parliament is now. The classes who rule in Britain will hear your cry as they have heard it before, and will pay no attention to it. They will see your people leaving your shores, and they will think it no. cala mity to the country. They know that they have force to suppress insurrection, and, therefore, you can gain nothing from their fears. What, then, is your hope? It is in a better Parliament, representing fairly the United Kingdom — the movement which is now in force in England and Scotland, and which is your movement as much as ours. If there were 100 more Members, the representatives of large and free consti tuencies, then your cry would be heard, and the people would give you that justice which a class has so long denied you. The great party that is now in power — the Tory party — denies that you have any just cause of complaint. In a speech delivered the other day in Belfast, much was said of the enforce ment of the law ; but there was nothing said about any change or amendment in the law. With this party terror is their only specific, — they have no confidence in allegiance except where there is no power to rebel. Now, I differ from these men entirely. I believe that at the root of a general discontent there is in all countries a general grievance and general suffering. The surface of so ciety is not incessantly disturbed with out a cause. I recollect in the poem of the greatest of Italian poets, he tells us that as he saw in vision the Stygian lake, and stood upon its banks, he observed the constant commotion upon the surface of the pool, and his good instructor and guide explained to him the cause of it — * This, too, for certain know, that under neath The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs Into these bubbles make the surface heave, As thine eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turn.' And I say in Ireland for generations back, that the misery and the wrongs of the people have made their sign, and have found a voice in constant insur rection and disorder. I have said that Ireland is a country of many wrongs and of many sorrows. Her past lies almost all in shadow. Her present is full of anxiety and peril. Her future depends on the power of her people to substitute equality and justice for supre macy, and a generous patriotism for the spirit of faction. In die effort now making in Great Britain to create a free representation of the people you have the deepest interest. The people never 1 866. IRELAND VI. 191 wish to suffer, and they never wish to inflict injustice. They have no sym pathy with the wrong-doer, whether in Great Britain or in Ireland ; and when they are fairly represented in the Im perial Parliament, as I hope they will one day be, they will speedily give an effective and final answer to that old question of the Parliament of Kilkenny — ' How comes it to pass that the King has never been the richer for Ireland?' •$4»~ IRELAND. VII. DUBLIN, NOVEMBER 2, 1866. [This speech was spoken at a public meeting held in Dublin, at which an Address from the Trades was presented to Mr. Bright. James Haughton, Esq., was in the Chair.] 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 speaking, for I have suffered, as I am afraid you will find 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 incon siderable number, of the working men of this city who would be glad if I would meet them ; and it was proposed to offer 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 ren der to any portion of my countrymen. Your countrymen are reckoned gene rally to be a people of great gratitude and of much enthusiasm, and, therefore, I accept the Address with all the kind ness and feelings of friendship with which it has been offered, and I hope it will be, at least in some degree, a stimu lant to me, in whatever position of life I am placed, . to remember, as I have ever in past times remembered, the claims of the people of this island to complete and equal justice with the people of Great Britain. Now, there may be persons in this room, I should be surprised if there were not, who doubt whether it is worth their while even to hope for substantial justice, as this address says, from a Par liament sitting in London. If there .be such a man in this room let him under stand 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, I, at any rate, stand as a friend of the most complete justice to the people of this island. When discussing the question of Parliamentary Reform, I have often heard it asserted that the people of Ire land, and I am not speaking of those who are hopeless of good from a Par liament 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 what ever be the importance of that question to any man in England or Scotland, if the two islands are to continue under Imperial Parliamentary Government, it is of more importance to every Irish man. You know that the Parliament of i866. IRELAND. VII. *93 which I am a Member contains 658 Members, of whom 105 cross the Chan nel from Ireland, and when they go to London they meet — supposing all the Members of the House of Commons are gathered together — 553 Members who are returned for Great Britain. Now, suppose that all your 105 Mem bers were absolutely good and honour able representatives of the people of Ireland — I will not say Tories, or Whigs, or Radicals, or Repealers, but anything you like, — let every man ima gine that all these Members were ex actly 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 Parliament ary representation in Great Britain is very bad, that it represents very few persons in that great island, and that those who appear to be represented are distributed in the small boroughs over different parts of the countiy, and in the counties under the thumb and finger of the landlords, it is clear that the whole Parliament, although your 105 Mem bers 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 Great Britain were at least equally good, you might have a hundred excellent Irish Members in. Parliament at Westminster ; but the whole 658 Members might be a very bad Parliament 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 kingdom ; 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 United King dom—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 two or three facts with regard to Ireland alone. I have stated some facts with regard to England and Scotland at recent meet ings held across the Channel. Now for two or three facts with re gard to Ireland. In Ireland you have five boroughs returning each one Mem ber, the average number of electors in each of these boroughs being only 172. You , have 13 boroughs, die average number being 316. You have 9 other boroughs with an average number of electors of 497. You have, therefore, 27 boroughs whose whole number of electors, if they were all put together, is only 9,453, or an average of 350 electors for each Member. 1 must tell you further that you have a single county with nearly twice as many voters as the whole of those 27 boroughs. Your 27 boroughs have only 9,453 electors, and the county of Cork has 16,107 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 bo rough constituencies are so small, that it is almost impossible that they should be independent ; a very acute lawyer, for example, in one of those boroughs — a very influential 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 corrup tion from candidates going with a well- filled purse, — these are the influences brought to bear upon those small bo roughs both in England and Ireland. A great many of them return their Members by means of corruption, more or less, and a free and real representa tion of the people is hardly ever possible in a borough of that small size. But if I were to compare your bo roughs with your counties, see how it stands. You have thirty-nine borough Members, with 30,000 electors, and you have sixty-four county Members, with J3 i94 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. NOV. 2, 172,000 electors. Therefore you see that the Members are so distributed 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 con sequence. Not only are those small boroughs altogether too small for inde pendence, but if we come to your large county constituencies, we find that from the peculiar circumstances and the rela tions 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 majo rity in favour of the Liberal candidates. I am not speaking merely of men who profess a sort of liberality which just enables them to go with their party, but I speak of men who would be thoroughly in earnest in sustaining, as far as they were able, in Parliament, the opinions which 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, and Manches ter and Birmingham, and the metropo litan 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 give them compensation for any improvements they may have made 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 exaggerations circulated by the writers of the two parties, it is quite clear to everybody that the cir cumstances of that election, though 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 has the ballot. 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 North Germany, which is about soon to be assembled, every man of twenty-five years of age is to be allowed to vote, and to vote by ballot. Now, I hold, without any fear of con tradiction, that the intelligence and the 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 ago the people of Ireland, and, I venture to say, the people of Great Britain united with Ireland My friend up tiiere 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 representa tion of the whole, would long ago have remedied every just grievance of which you could complain. 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 in England are Nonconformists. They are not in favour of an Established Church any where, and it is utterly impossible that 1 866. IRELAND. VII. '95 they could be in favour of an Established Church in an island like this — an Es tablished Church fonned of a mere handful of the population, in opposi tion to the wishes of the nation. Now take the Principality of Wales. I sup pose that four out of five of the popula tion 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 numbers from their Established Church, although of a democratic character, that I suppose those who have seceded are a consider able majority of the whole people — they are not in favour of maintaining an ecclesiastical Establishment 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, or 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 adminis tration of the law which has worked such mischiefs in your country. But these Nonconformists, whether in Eng land, 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 are 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 I believe - that you yourselves could not do your selves such complete justice by your selves as you can do, by fairly acting with the generous millions of my countrymen in whose name I 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 presume 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 sympathy. They sincerely hope that soon in Ireland, as in Scotland and England, Reform Leagues may be formed in eveiy 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 thousands of their fellow-countrymen are forced to seek in other lands — where land and State Church grievances are unknown. We also seek co-operation, knowing that our freedom, though se cure to-morrow, would not be safe so long as one portion of the United King dom were less free than the other por tions.' There is the outspoken voice of the representatives of that great multi tude that only a fortnight since I saw passing through the streets of Glasgow. For three hours the procession passed, with all the emblems and symbols of their various trades, and the streets for two or three miles were enlivened by banners, and the air was filled with the sounds of music from tiieir 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 when you 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 wrongs, of the discredit that its condition has brought upon the English, the Irish, and the British name, I have 13—2 196 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 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 visit for the purpose of dis cussing the great Irish question, and of rousing my countrymen to some great and united action. I do not believe' in the necessity of wide-spread and perpetual misery. I do not believe that we are placed on this island, and on this earth, that one man may be great and wealthy, and revel in every profuse indulgence, and five, six, nine, or ten men shall 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 'you might not do. There have been reasons to my mind why soil and climate, and the labour of your population, have not produced general comfort and compe tence for all. The Address speaks of the friendly feeling and the sympathy which I 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 sat by his side for hours in that House, and listened to observations both amusing and instructive on what was passing under discussion. I have seen him, too, more than once upon the platforms of the Anti-Com-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 1815, and we owe much to his ever- tions in connection with that question, for almost the whole Liberal — I suppose the whole Liberal— party of the Irish representatives in Parliament supported the measure of free trade of which we were the prominent 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. Why is it, now, that there should be any kind of schism between the Liberal people of Ireland and the Liberal people of Great Britain ? I do not ask you to join hands with supremacy and oppres sion, whether in your island 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 people of Great Britain. Before I sit down, I must be allowed to advert to a point which has been much commented upon — a sentence in my speech made the other night with regard to the land. There are news papers in Dublin which I need not name, because I am quite sure you can find them out — which do not feel any strong desire to judge fairly anything I may propose for the pacification and redemption 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 pos sessors of their own soil.' You will know perfectly well that I am not about to propose a copy of the villain ous crimes of two hundred years ago, to confiscate the lands of the proprietors, here or elsewhere. I propose to intro duce a system which would gradually, no doubt rapidly and easily, without injuring anybody, make many thousands who are now tenant-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 gentlemen to whom I have referred may not repeat the very untrue, and I may say dishonourable comments which they have made upon me. There are many large estates in Ireland which belong to rich families in England, — families not only of the highest rank, but of the highest cha racter, — because I will venture to say there are not to be found amongst the English nobility families of more perfect honourableness and worth than some of those to whom my plan would be offered ; and, therefore, I am not speak ing against the aristocracy, against those i866. IRELAND. VII. 197 families, or against property, or against anybody, or against anything that is good. I say, that if Parliament were to appoint a Commission, and give it, say, at first up to the amount of five millions sterling, the power to negotiate or treat with those great families in England who have estates in Ireland, it is pro bable that some of those great estates might be bought at a not very unrea sonable price. I am of opinion that this would be the cheapest money that the Imperial Parliament ever expended, even though it became possessed of those estates at a price considerably above the market price. But I propose it should be worked in this way. I will take a case. I will assume that this Com mission is in possession of a considerable estate bought from some present owner of it. I will take one farm, which I will assume to be worth 1,000/., for which the present tenant is paying a rent of 50/. a-year. He has no lease. He has no security. He makes almost no im provement of any kind; and he is not quite sure whether, when he has saved a little more money, he will not take his family off to the United States. Now we will assume ourselves, if you like, to be that Commission, and that we have before us the farmer who is the tenant on that particular farm, for which he pays 50/. a-year, without lease or security, and which I assume to be worth 1,000/. The Government, I believe, lends money to Irish land owners for drainage purposes at about 3j- per cent, per annum. Suppose the Government were to say to this farmer, ' You would not have any objection to become possessed of this farm?' ' No, not the slightest,' he might answer, ' but how is that to be done ?' In this way ; — You may pay 50/. a-year, that is, 5 per cent, on one thousand pounds; the Government can afford to do these transactions for 3! per cent.; if you will pay 60/. a-year for a given number of years, which any of the actuaries of the insurance offices or any good arith metician may soon calculate, — if you will pay 60/. for your rent, instead of 50/., it may be for perhaps twenty years, — at the end of that time the farm will be yours, without any further payment. I want you to understand how this is. If the farmer paid ten pounds a-year more than he now pays, towards buying his farm, and if the 1,000/. the Govern ment would pay for the farm would not cost the Government more than 35/., the difference between 35/. and 60/. being 25/., would be the sum which that farmer, in his rent, would be paying to the Commission, that is, to the Government, for the redemption of his farm. Thus, at the end of a very few years, the farmer would possess his own farm, having a perfect security in the meantime. Nobody could turn him out if he paid his rent, and nobody could rob him for any improvement he made on his land. The next morning after he made that agreement, he would ex plain it to his wife and to his big boy, who had perhaps been idling about for a long time, and there would not be a stone on the land that would not be removed, not a weed that he would not pull up, not a particle of manure that he would not save ; everything would be done with a zeal and an enthusiasm which he had never known before ; and by the time the few years had run on when the farm should become his- without any further purchase, he would have turned a dilapidated, miserable little farm into a garden for himself and family. Now, this statement may be commented on by some of the news papers. You will understand that I do not propose a forced purchase, or any confiscation. I would undertake even to give — if I were the Government — to every one of these landlords twenty per cent, more for his estate than it will fetch in the market in London or in Dublin, and I say that to do this would produce a marvellous change in the sentiments of the people, and in the condition of agriculture in Ireland. But I saw in one of the papers a question to which I may give a reply. It was said, How would you like to SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. have a Commission come down into Lancashire and insist on buying your factories ? I can only say that if they will give me 20 per cent, or 10 per cent. more than they are worth, they shall have them to-morrow. But I do not propose that the Commission should come here and insist on buying these estates. They say, further, Why should a man in Ireland keep his estate, and not a man in England who has an estate in Ireland? There is this differ ence. A man in Ireland, if he has an estate of 10,000 acres, has in it probably his ancestral home. He has ties to this which it would be monstrous to think of severing in such a manner. But a man living in England, who is not an Irishman, and who never comes over here except to receive his rents (which, in fact, he generally receives through his bankers in London), who has no particular tie to this country, and who comes over here occasionally merely because he feels that, as a great proprietor in Ireland, it would be scan dalous never to show his face on his property and amongst his tenants — to such a man there would be no hardship if he should part with his land at a fair price. I have been charged with saying severe things of the English aristocracy. Now, this is not true in the sense in which it is imputed to me. I have always said that there are many men in the English aristocracy who would be noblemen in the sight of their fellow- men although they had no titles and no coronets. There are men amongst them of as undoubted patriotism as any man in this building, or in this island, and there are men amongst them, who when they saw that a great public object was to be gained for the benefit of their fellow-men, would make as great sacri fices as any one of us would be willing to do. I am of opinion therefore — I may be wrong, but I will not believe it until it is proved — I am of opinion that if this question were discussed in Par liament when next the Irish land ques tion is discussed, and if there was a general sentiment in the House of Commons that some measure like this would be advantageous for Ireland, — and if it were so expressed, it may be assumed that it would be accepted to a large extent by the people of the United Kingdom, — then I think that a Commission so appointed would find no difficulty whatever in discovering noblemen and rich men in England, who are the possessors of great estates in Ireland, who would be willing to negotiate for their transfer, and that Commission, by the process I have in dicated, might transfer them gradually but speedily to the tenant-farmers of this country. I am told that I have not been much in Ireland, and do not know much of it. I recollect a man in England during the American war asking me a question about America. When I gave him an answer which did not agree with his opinion, he said, ' I think you have never been in America, have you ? ' I said I had not ; and he replied, ' Well, I have been there three times, and I know something of them.' He was asking me whether I thought the Yankees would pay when they bor rowed money to carry on the war ; and I thought they would. But, as he had been there, he thought his opinion was worth more than mine. I told him I knew several people who had lived in England all their lives and yet knew very little about England. I am told that if I were to live in Ireland amongst the people, I should have a different opinion ; that I should think the State Church of a small minority was honest, in the face of the great Church of the majority ; that I should think it was not the fault of the landowners or of the law in any degree, but the fault of the tenants, that everything went wrong with regard to the land; and that I should find that it was the Government that was mostly right, and the legisla tion right, and that it was the people that were mostly wrong. There are certain questions with regard to any countiy that you may settle in your i866. IRELAND. VII. 199 own house, never having seen that countiy even upon a map. This you may settle, that what is just is just everywhere, and that men, from those of the highest culture even to those of the most moderate capacity, whatever may be their race, whatever their colour, have implanted in their hearts by their Creator, wiser much than my critics, the knowledge and the love of justice. I will tell you that, since the day when I sat beside O'Connell — and at an earlier day — I have considered this question of Ireland. In 1849, for several weeks in the autumn, and for several weeks in the autumn of 1852, 1 came to Ireland expressly to examine this question by consulting with all classes of the people in every part of the island. I will un dertake to say that I believe there is no man in England who has more fully studied the evidence given before the celebrated Devon Commission in regard to Ireland than I have. Therefore I dare stand up before any Irishman or Englishman to discuss the Irish ques tion. I say that the plans, the theories, the policy, the legislation of my op ponents in this matter all have failed signally, deplorably, disastrously, igno- miniously, and, therefore, I say that I have a right to come in and offer the people of Ireland, as I would offer to the people of Great Britain and the Im perial Parliament, a wise and just policy upon this question. You know that I have attended great meetings in England within the last two months, and in Scotland also. I think I am at liberty to tender to you from those hundreds of thousands of men the hand of fellowship and good will. I wish I might be permitted when I go back, as in fact 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 com mitted, 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 in this island, and amongst its people, a heart that can sympathise with those who turn to them with a fixed resolution to judge them fairly, and to do them justice. I have made my speech. I have said my say. I have fulfilled my small mis sion to you. I thank you from my heart for the kindness with which you have received me, which I shall never forget. And if I have in past times felt an unquenchable sympathy with the sufferings of your people, you may rely upon it that if there be an Irish Member to speak for Ireland, he will find me heartily by his side. ¦:— og^xgeo— : IRELAND. VIII. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 14, 1868. From Hansard. [This speech was spoken on the occasion of a proposition by Mr. Maguire, M.P. for Cork, for ' a Committee of the whole House to consider the state of Ireland.'] When this debate began it was not my intention to take any part in it ; for I had very lately, in another place and to a larger audience, added my contribution to the great national deliberation upon Irish affairs which is now in progress. But the speech of the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and some misunderstanding that has arisen of what I said elsewhere, have changed my in tention, and therefore I have to ask for the indulgence of the House, in the hope that I may make on this question a more practical speech than that to which we have just listened. It is said by eminent censors of the press that this debate will yield about thirty hours of talk, and will end in no result. I have observed that all great questions in this country require thirty hours of talk many times repeated before they are settled. There is much shower and much sunshine between the sowing of the seed and the reaping of the harvest, but the harvest is generally reaped after all. I was very much struck with what happened on the first night of the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Cork, in the opening portion of his address, described the state of Ireland from his point of view, and the facts he stated are not and cannot be disputed. He said that the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended for three years in his country — that within the island there' was a large military force, amounting, as we have heard to-night — besides 12,000 or more of armed police — to an army of 20,000 men — that in the harbours of Ireland there were ships of war, and in her rivers there were gunboats ; and that throughout that country — as throughout this — there has been and is yet consider able alarm with regard to the discontent prevalent in Ireland. All that is quite true ; but when the noble Lord the Chief Secretary opened his speech, the first portion of it was of a very different complexion. I am willing to admit that to a large extent it was equally true. He told us that the condition of the people of Ireland was considerably better now than it was at MARCH I4, IC IRELAND. VIII. the time of the Devon Commission. At the time of the Devon Commission the condition of that countiy had no parallel in any civilized and Christian nation. By the force of famine, pesti lence, and emigration, the population was greatly diminished, and it would be a very extraordinary thing indeed if with such a diminution of the population there was no improvement in the con dition of those who remained behind. He showed that wages are higher, and he pointed to the fact that in the trade in and out of the Irish ports they had a considerable increase, and though I will not say that some of those comparisons were quite accurate or fair, I am on the whole ready to admit the truth of the statement the noble Lord made. But now it seems to me that, admitting the truth of what my hon. Friend the Member for Cork said, and admitting equally the truth of what the noble Lord said, there remains before us a question even more grave than any we have had to discuss in past years with regard to the condition of Ireland. If — and this has been already referred to by more than one speaker — if it be true that with a considerable improve ment in the physical condition of the people— if it be true that with a univer sality of education much beyond that which exists in this island — if it be true that after the measures that have been passed, and have been useful, there still remains in Ireland, first of all, what is called Fenianism, which is a reckless and daring exhibition of feeling — be yond that a very wide discontent and disloyalty — and beyond that, amongst the whole of the Roman Catholic popu lation, universal dissatisfaction — and if that be so, surely my hon. Friend the Member for Cork — one of the most useful and eminent of the representatives of Ireland — is right in bringing this question before the House. And there is no question at this moment that we could possibly discuss connected with the interest or honour of the people that approaches in gravity and magnitude to that now before us. And if this state of things be true — and remember I have said nothing but what the hon. Mem ber for Cork has said, and I have given my approval to nothing he has said that was not confirmed by the speech of the noble Lord — if this be true, surely all this great effect must have some cause. We are unworthy of our position as Members of this House, and representa tives of our countrymen, if we do not endeavour at least to discover the cause, and if we can discover it, speedily to apply a remedy. The cause is perfectly well known to both sides of the House. The noble Lord, it is clear, knows it even from the tenor of his own speech — he spoke of the question of the land, and of the Church. The noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn — whose observations in this debate, if he had offered them, we should have been glad to listen to — understands it, for he re- fened to the two questions in his speech at the Bristol banquet. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Govern ment understands it not only as well as I do, but he understands it precisely in the same sense — and more than twenty years ago, when I stated in this House the things, or nearly the things, I stated recently and shall state to-night, he, from your own benches, was making speeches exactly of the same import. And though there is many a thing he seems at times not to recollect, yet I am bound to say he recollects these words, and the impressions, of which these words were the expressions to the House. He referred to an absentee aristocracy and an alien Church. I would not say a syllable about the aristocracy in this matter ; if I had to choose a phrase, I would rather say an absentee proprietary and an alien Church. What is the obvious remedy which for this state of things has been found to be sufficient in every other country ? If I could do so by any means that did not violate the rights of property, I should be happy to give to a consider able portion of the farmers of Ireland SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I4 some proprietary rights, and to remove from that country the sense of injustice, and the sense — the strongest of all — of the injustice caused by the existence of an alien Church. Just for a moment look at the proposition the noble Lord is about to submit to the House. It is very like the Bill of last year. I will not enter into the details, except to say that he proposes, as he proposed then, that the Government should lend the tenant-farmers of Ireland sums of money, by which they would make improve ments, which sums of money were to be repaid by some gradual process to the Government authorities. He proposes that the repayment should be spread over a considerable number of years — I do not know the exact number, and it is not of importance for my argument. These tenant-farmers are very numerous — perhaps too numerous, it may be, for the good of the country — but there they are, and we must deal with them as we find them. The number of them holding under 15 acres is 250,000 ; holding be tween 15 acres and 30 acres, 136,000; holding over 30 acres, 158,000 — alto gether there are more than 540,000 holders of land. It is to these 540,000 land-holders or occupiers that the noble Lord proposes to lend money, on the condition that they make certain im provements, and repay after a certain number of years the sums advanced to them. I think I am right in saying that there is no limitation in the Bill as to the smallness of the holding to which the advance of money will be refused ; and therefore the whole 540,000 tenants will be in a position to come to the Government, or to some Commission, or to the Board of Works, or to some authority in Ireland, and ask for money to enable them to improve their farms. The House will see that if this plan is to produce any considerable result, it will be the source of a number of trans actions such as the Government have not had to deal with in any other mat ter ; and I expect that the difficulties will be very great, and that the work ing out of the plan with any beneficial results will be altogether impossible. What I ask the House is this— if it be right of the noble Lord, to enable him to cany out his plan, to ask the House to pass a measure like this — to lend all these tenants the money for improve ments to be repaid after a series of years, would it not be possible for us by a somewhat similar process, and by some step farther in the same direction, to establish to some extent — I am not speaking of extending it all through Ireland — a farmer proprietary through out the country ? If it be right and proper to lend money to improve, it surely may be proper, if it be on other grounds judicious, to lend money to buy. I do not know if the right hon. Member for Calne is here; but very likely he would spare me from the se vere criticisms he expended upon my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster. Now, I am as careful as any man can be, I believe, of doing anything by law that shall infringe what you think and what I think are the rights of property. I do not pretend to believe, if you ex amine the terms strictly, in what is called the absolute property in land. You may toss a sixpence into the sea if you like, but there are things with respect to land which you cannot, and ought not, and dare not do. But I do not want to argue the question of legis lation upon that ground. I am myself of opinion that there is no class in the community more interested in a strict adherence to the principles of political economy, worked out in a benevolent and just manner, than the humblest and poorest class in the countiy. I think they have as much interest in it as the rich, and the House has never known me, and so long as I stand here will never know me, I believe, to propose or advocate anything which shall interfere with what I believe to be, and what if a landowner I would maintain to be, the just right of property in the land. But, then, I do not think, as some persons seem to think, that the land is really only intended to be in the hands of the rich. I think that is a great mis- i868. IRELAND. VIII. 203 take. I am not speaking of the poor — for the poor man, in the ordinary mean ing of the term, cannot be the possessor of land ; but what I wish is, that fanners and men of moderate means should become possessors of land and of their farms. About two centuries ago, two very celebrated men en deavoured to form a constitution for Carolina, which was then one of the colonies of this country in America. Lord Shaftesbury, the statesman, and Mr. Locke, the philosopher, framed a constitution with the notion of having great proprietors all over the country, and men under them to cultivate it. I recollect that Mr. Bancroft, the his torian of the United States, describing the issue of that attempt and its utter failure, says: 'The instinct of aristo cracy dreads the moral power of a pro prietary yeomanry, and therefore the perpetual degradation of the cultivators of the soil was enacted.' There is no countiy in the world, in which . there are only great landowners and tenants, with no large manufacturing interest to absorb the population, in which the degradation of the cultivating tenant is not completely assured. I hope that hon. Members opposite, and hon. Gentlemen on this side who may be disposed in some degree to sympathise with them, will not for a moment imagine that I am discussing this question in any spirit of hostility to the landowners of Ireland. I have al ways argued that the landowners of Ireland, in their treatment of this ques tion, have grievously mistaken not only the interests of the population, but their own. I was told the other day by a Member of this House, who comes from Ireland, and is eminently capable of giving a sound opinion upon the point, that he believed the whole of Ireland might be bought at about twenty years' purchase ; but you know that the land of England is worth thirty years' purchase, and I believe a great deal of it much more, — and it is owing to circumstances which legislation may in a great degree remove that the land of Ireland is worth at this moment so much less than the land of England. Coming back to the question of buying farms, I put it to the House whether, if it be right to lend to landlords for im provements, and to tenants for improv ing the farms of their landlords, to those who propose to carry on public works, and to repair the ravages of the cattle plague, I ask whether it is not also right for them to lend money in cases where it may be advantageous to landlords, and where they may be very willing to consent to it, to estab lish a portion of the tenant-farmers of Ireland as proprietors of their farms. Now, bear in mind that I have never spoken about peasant proprietors. I do not care what name you give them ; I am in favour of more proprietors, and some, of course, will be small and some will be large ; but it would be quite possible for Parliament, if it thought fit to attempt anything of this kind, to fix a limit below which it would not assist the owner to sell or the purchaser to buy. I believe that you can establish a class of moderate proprietors, who will form a body intermediate between the great owners of land and those who are absolutely landless, which will be of immense service in giving steadiness, loyalty, and peace to the whole popula tion of the island. The noble Lord the Chief Secretary, knows perfectly well at what price he could lend that money, and I will just state to the House one fact which will show how the plan would work. If you were to lend money at 3! per cent., in thirty-five years the tenant, paying 5 per cent., would have paid the whole money back and all the interest due on it, and would become the owner of his farm ; and if you were to take the rate at which you have lent to the Harbour Commissioners, and to repair the rava ges of the cattle plague, which is 3^ per cent., of course the whole sum would be paid back in a shorter period. There fore, in a term which in former times was not unusual in the length of leases in Ireland, namely, thirty-one years, the 204 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 14, tenant purchasing his farm, without his present rent being raised, would repay to the Government the principal and interest of the sum borrowed for that purpose, would become the owner of his farm, and during the whole of that time would have absolute fixity of tenure, because every year he would be saving more and more, adding field to field, and at the end of the time he would be the proprietor of the soil. Let not the House imagine that I am proposing to buy up the whole of the land. I am proposing only to buy it in cases where men are willing to sell, and to transfer it only in cases where men are able and willing to buy, and you must know as well as I that there will be many thousands of such cases in a few years. Every Irish proprietor opposite — the noble Lord the Member for Tyrone (Lord C. Hamilton) himself, who made so animated a speech, and appeared so angry with me a short time ago — must know perfectly well that amongst the tenantry of Ireland there is a considerable sum of saved money not invested in farms. Well, that saved money would all .come out to carry into effect transactions of this nature ; and you will find the most extraordinaiy efforts made by thousands of tenants to become possessors of their farms by investing their savings' in them, by ob taining it may be the assistance of their friends, and by such an industrious and energetic cultivation of the soil as has scarcely ever been seen in Ireland. I said there were landlords willing to sell, and there are cases in which, probably, Parliament might insist upon a sale — for instance, the lands of the London Companies. I never heard of much good that was done by all the money of the London Companies. I was once invited to a dinner by one of these Com panies, and certainly it was of a very sumptuous and substantial character, but I believe that, if the tenants of these Companies were proprietors of the lands they cultivate, it would be a great ad vantage to the counties in which they are situated. I come then to this : I would negotiate with landowners who were willing to sell and tenants who were willing to buy, and I would make the land the great savings-bank for the future tenantry of Ireland. If you like, I would limit the point to which we might go down in the transference of farms, but I would do nothing in the whole transaction which was not per fectly acquiesced in by both landlord and tenant, and I would pay the landlord every shilling he could fairly demand in the market for the estate he proposed to sell. Well, I hope every Gentleman pre sent will acquit me of intending confis cation, and that, we shall have no further misunderstanding upon that point. I venture to say to the noble Lord that this is a plan which would be within compass and management, as compared with that laid down in his Bill, if it worked at all, and I believe that it would do a hundred times as much good, in putting the farmer upon the footing of a holder of land in Ire land. What do hon. Gentlemen think would become of an American Fenian if he came over to Ireland and hap pened to spend an evening with a num ber of men who had got possession of their farms. I remember my old friend Mr. Stafford, in the county of Wexford, whom I called upon in 1849, who had bought his farm and had built upon it the best farm-house which I saw in the whole South of Ireland, and who told me that if all the tenantry of Ireland had security for their holdings — he was an old man, and could not easily rise from his chair, though he made an effort to do so — ' If they had the security that I have,' said he, 'we'd bate the hunger out of Ireland.' If the Fenian spent his evening with such men as these, and proposed his reckless schemes to them, not a single farmer would listen to him for a moment. Their first impression would be that he was mad; their second, perhaps, that the whisky had been too strong for him ; and it would end, no doubt, if he persisted in his efforts to seduce them from their 1 868. IRELAND. VIII.^ 205 allegiance to the Imperial Government, by their turning him off the premises, though perhaps, knowing that he could do no harm, they might not hand him over to the police. The other day I passed through the county of Somerset, and through vil lages that must be well known to many Gentlemen here — Rodney -Stoke and Drayford, I think they were called — and I noticed a great appearance of life and activity about the neighbour hood. I asked the driver of the car riage which had brought me from Wells what was the cause of it. ' Why,' he said, 'don't you know that is the place where the great sale took place ?' 'What sale?' I asked. 'Oh! the sale of the Duke's property.' ' What Duke ?' ' The Duke of Buckingham. Did you never hear of it? About fifteen years ago his property was sold in lots, and the people bought all the farms. You never saw such a stir in the world.' He pointed out the houses on the hill side which had been built to replace old tumble-down tenements, the red soil appearing under the plough, and culti vation going on with such general ac tivity as had not been witnessed till within these last few years. The ap pearance of these villages was such as must strike every traveller from another part of the countiy, and it was produced by simple means. The great estate of an embarrassed Duke had been divided and sold off; he had not been robbed ; the old miserable hovels of the former tenants had been pulled down, and new life and activity had been given to the whole district. If you could have such a change as this in Ireland, you would see such a progress and prosperity that gentlemen would hardly know the dis trict from which they came. I think it only fair to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster to say, that I do not believe the time is come in Ireland, and I do not believe it ever will come, when it will be necessary to have recourse to so vast and extra ordinary a scheme as that which he has proposed to the House. It appears to me that it is not necessary for Ireland. There is the land— there is the owner — there is the tenant. If the land owners had been a little wiser we might not have had before us to-night the difficulty that now perplexes us. Suppose, for example, they had not been tempted to coerce or to make use of the votes of their tenants ; suppose they had not been tempted to withhold leases — undoubtedly the condition of Ireland would have been far superior to what it now is. My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster has some scruples, I believe, on the question of the ballot, but I believe even he would not object to see that admirable ma chinery of election tried in that coun try. Do hon. Gentlemen think it not necessary? I was talking, only two days ago, to a Member of this House who sat on one of the Irish election committees — the Waterford committee, I think — and he said : ' We could not unseat the Members, though the evi dence went to show a frightful state of things ; it was one of the most orderly elections they have in that country — ¦ only three men killed and twenty-eight seriously wounded.' After all, we may smile, and some of you may laugh at this, but it is not a thing to be laughed at. It is a very serious matter, but it exists in no country in the world where the ballot is in operation. If you were to try that mode of elec tion in Ireland it would have two results : it would make your elections perfectly tranquil, and at the same time it would withdraw from the landowner — and a most blessed thing for the landowner himself this would be — it would with draw from him the great temptation to make use of his tenant's vote for the support of his own political party ; and if that temptation were withdrawn, you would have much more inducement to grant leases to many of your tenants, and you would take a step highly favourable, not to the prosperity of your tenants only, but to your own prosperity and your own honour. Now, Sir, I shall say no more upon that 206 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I4, question except this, that I feel myself at a disadvantage in making a pro position of this nature to a House where landowners are so numerous and so powerful, but I have disarmed them in so far that they will see that I mean them no harm, and that what I propose is not contrary to the principles of political economy ; and that if Govern ment is at liberty to lend money for all the purposes to which I have referred, Government must be equally at liberty to lend money for this greater purpose ; and, further, I venture to express my opinion, without the smallest hesitation or doubt, that if this were done to the extent of creating some few scores of thousands of farmer proprietors in Ire land, you would find that their influ ence would be altogether loyal ; that it would extend around throughout the whole countiy; that whilst you were adding to the security of Government you would awaken industry in Ireland from its slumber, and you would have the wealth which you have not had be fore, and, with wealth, contentment and tranquillity in its train. Now, Sir, it may appear egotistical in me to make one remark more, but I think if the House will not condemn me I shall make it. Last year you did, under the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman, accept a proposition which I had taken several years of trouble and labour to convince you was wise. On Wednesday last, only two days ago, by an almost unanimous vote you accepted a proposition with regard to another matter, exactly in the form in which six or seven years ago I had urged you to accept it. You in this House recollect when Mr. Speaker had to give the cast ing vote, amidst vast excitement in the House, on the miserable question of Church Rates ; but now, on Wednesday last, you accepted that Bill almost with out opposition ; and I presume that, ex cept for the formality of a third reading, we have done with the question for ever. Now if you would kindly, I ask it as a favour — if you would kindly for a moment forget things that you read of me which are not favourable, and generally which are not true, and if you would imagine that though I have not an acre of land in Ireland, I can be as honestly a friend of Ireland as the man who owns half a county, it may be worth your while to consider for your own interest, the interests of your ten ants, the security of the country from which you come, for the honour of the United Kingdom, whether there is not something in the proposition that I have made to you. Now, Sir, perhaps the House will allow me to turn to that other question which, on the authority of the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn, and indeed on the autho rity of the Prime Minister himself, is considered the next greatest — perhaps I ought to have said the greatest — ques tion we have to consider in connection with Irish affairs ; I mean the Irish Church question. What is it that is offered upon this matter by the Government? The noble Lord himself said veiy little about it, but he is not easy upon it ; he knows perfectiy well, and cannot conceal it, that the Irish Church question is at the root of every other question in Ire land. The noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn said also that it was, along with the land, the great and solemn question which we had to discuss, and he turned round — I could discover it from the report in the paper, because I was not, as you may suppose, at the Bristol banquet — he turned round almost with a look of despair, and implored somebody to come and tell us what ought to be done on tiiis Irish question. And the Prime Minister himself, in speaking of it, called it an 'Alien Church.' Bear that phrase in mind. It is a strong phrase, a phrase we can all understand, and we know that the right hon. Gentleman is a great master of phrases — he says a word upon some subject; it sticks; we all remember it, and this is sometimes a great advantage. ' Alien Church ' is the name he gives it ; and now, what does the noble Lord, 1868. IRELAND. VIII. 207 acting, no doubt, under the direction of his Colleagues and the Prime Minister, offer upon this question? He rather offered a defence of it ; he did not go into any argument, but still, at the same time, he rather defied anybody to make an assault upon it; he believed that it would not succeed, and that it was very wrong; but what does he really pro pose ? Only this : to add another but tress in the shape of another bribe. He says that he will make an offer to the Roman Catholic hierarchy and people of Ireland — some say that the people do not want it, and that the hierarchy do want it, but I say nothing about that, because I hope the Catholic people of Ireland are at least able to defend them selves from the hierarchy, if the hier archy wish to cripple them too much — ¦ he says he will endow a Roman Catholic University in Ireland. As the noble Lord went on with his speech he touched upon the question of the Presbyterian Regium Donum, and spoke of it, I think, as a miserable provision for the Presbyterians of the North of Ire land ; and evidently, if he had had the courage, the desperate courage to do it, he would have proposed, whilst he was offering to endow a new Roman Catholic University, to increase or double the Regium Donum. The noble Lord does not express any dissent from this, and I rather think he wishes that it were safely done. The object of this, and what he would like to have said to the hon. Gentleman about him who came from Ireland to represent the Roman Catholic population, and to the Presbyterians of the North of Ire land, was this : ' If you will continue to support the Protestant Church in Ireland and the Protestant supremacy, we will endow you (the Roman Catholics) a University, really, if not professedly, under clerical rule ; and as to you (the Presbyterians), we will double your sti pend by doubling the amount of the Regium Donum.' Now, why do you offer anything? Why is it we are discussing this ques tion? Why did the noble Lord think it necessary to speak for three hours and twenty minutes on the subject? Because the state of Ireland is now very different from the state which we have sometimes seen, and very different, I hope, from that which many of us may live to see hereafter; because Ireland has a certain portion of its population rebellious, has a larger portion disloyal and discontented, but has a still larger portion dissatisfied with the Imperial rule. Now I must say — I hope the noble Lord will not think I am saying anything uncivil — but I must say that his proposition appears to be at once grotesque and imbecile, and I think at the same time — though I do not like to use unpleasant words — that to a certain extent it must be held to be — in fact, I think the hon. Gentleman the Mem ber for North Warwickshire hinted as much — not only very wrong, but very dishonest. At this moment it seems to find no favour on either side of the House, although I can understand the Catholic Members of the House feeling themselves bound to say nothing against it, and perhaps, if it came to a division, to vote for it ; but I believe there is not a Catholic Member on this side of the House who could in his conscience say that it was right in him to accept this proposition as a bribe that he should hereafter support Protestant supremacy. In fact, it appears to m'e exactly in the position now that the dual vote was in this time twelve months, and there are people who say that it has been brought forward with the same object, and that by-and-by, as nobody is for it, the right hon. Gentleman will say that as nobody is in favour of it they will not urge it upon Parliament. Now, does anybody believe that a Catholic University in Ire land could have the smallest effect upon Fenianism, or upon the disloyalty, dis content, and dissatisfaction of which Fenianism is the latest and the most terrible expression ? It is quite clear that for the evil which we have to com bat, the remedy which the right hon. Gentleman offers through the Chief Secretary for Ireland is no remedy at all. 20S SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I4, It reminds me of an anecdote which is related by Addison. He says that in his time there was a man who made a living by cheating the country people. He was not a Cabinet Minister, — he was only a mountebank, — and he set up a stall, and sold pills that were very good against the earthquake. Well, that is about the state of things that we are in now. There is an earthquake in Ireland. Does anybody doubt it ? I will not go into the evidence of it, but I will say that there has been a most extraordinary alarm — some of it ex travagant, I will admit — throughout the whole of the three kingdoms; and although Fenianism may be but a low, a reckless, and an ignorant conspiracy, the noble Lord has admitted that there is discontent and disaffection in the countiy ; and when the Member for one of the great cities of Ireland comes for ward and asks the Imperial Parliament to discuss this great question — this social and political earthquake under which Ireland is. heaving — the noble Lord comes forward and offers that there shall be a clerical-governed en dowed University for the sons, I sup pose, of the Catholic gentlemen of Ire land. I have never heard a more un- statesmanlike or more unsatisfactory proposition ; and I believe the entire disfavour with which it has been re ceived in this House is only a proper representation of the condemnation which it will receive from the great majority of the people of the three kingdoms. Do not let any one suppose that I join in the terms which I regretted to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud, and still less that I join in the, in my opinion, more offensive terms which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne. There can be no good in our attacking either the Catholic population or the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland. We have our duty straight before us, which is to do both the hierarchy and the people justice. We are not called upon to support the plan of the Government, and I believe the people of Great Britain, and a very large portion of the people of Ireland, will rejoice when the House of Commons shall reject a proposition which is adverse to the course we have taken for many years past, and a pro position which would have no better effect in tranquillising Ireland in the future than the increase of the grant to Maynooth did more than twenty years ago. Sir Robert Peel at that time, with the most honourable and kindly feeling to Ireland, proposed to increase the grant to Maynooth, and it was passed, I think, by a large majority of the House, I being one of a very few per sons on this side of the House who opposed the grant. I was as kindly disposed to the Catholics of Ireland as Sir Robert Peel, but I was satisfied that was not the path of tranquillisation, and that if he trod that path it would before any long time have to be retraced ; and I think, if you now proceed upon the course recommended by the right hon. Gentleman, you will fail in the pacifica tion of Ireland, and the time will come when you will have to retrace the steps he invites you to tread in now. Now, Sir, I think we have arrived at this point of the question — that we have absolutely arrived at it, and there is no escape from it — that it does not matter in the least whether the right hon. Gentleman sits on the Treasury Bench, or whether the right hon. Mem ber for South Lancashire takes his place, or whether the two should unite — which is a very bold figure of speech — but I say that if the two should unite, it could not alter this fact, that the Protestant supremacy, as represented by a State Church in Ireland, is doomed, and is, in fact, at an end. Whatever are the details, and I admit that they will be very difficult details in some particulars, which may be introduced into the measure which shall enact the great change that the circumstances of Ireland and the opinion of the United Kingdom have declared to be necessary, this, at least, we have come to, that perfect religious equality henceforth, i868. IRELAND. VIII. 209 and not only religious equality, but equality on the voluntary principle, must be granted. Some hon. Gentlemen opposite have spoken about a pamphlet which has recently been written by Lord Russell. I would speak of Lord Russell, as the House knows, as I would always of a man older than myself, and whose services to the countiy have been so long and so great ; I speak of him with great respect, and I say that the pam phlet is written with wonderful fire, that it contains in it very much that is in teresting, and very much that is true, but its one fault is that it should have been published about forty years ago. Lord Russell's proposition is politically just in the division which he proposes of the property of the Church in Ireland and, if public opinion had not con demned the creation of new Established Churches, it might have been possible to have adopted his scheme as it is. But I say the time has gone by for the establishment of new State Churches. They will never again be planted as an institution in this country, and I sus pect there is no other country in the world which has not an Established Church that would wish to possess one. But, if the House will allow me, I should like to advert to a little scheme on this matter which I was bold enough to explain to my countrymen on the Occasion to which I have referred. It iss'not a new scheme in my mind, for the whole principle of it, with an elabo rate argument in its favour, were pub lished very widely in the year 1852, in a letter which I wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray), who was one of certain persons, Members of Parliament and others, who met in conference in Dublin on the question of religious equality in Ireland. I only state this to show that it is no new idea, and that I have had plenty of time to consider it. There have been great objections to the plan, and amongst those who have objected to it, as might possibly have been expected, were gentle men of the Liberation Society. Now, I know many of the leading members of that Society, and they are veiy good men. . Even those who may think they are mistaken would, if they knew them, join with me in that opinion. One of them, at least, who was once a Member of this House, and, in all probability, will be here again — Mr. Miall— is not only a good man, but he is a great man. I judge him by the nobleness of his principles, and by the grand devotion which he has manifested to the teaching of what he believes to be a great truth. I take criticisms from them kindly, as we ought to take them from our friends when they are honestly given. What is the condition of Ireland at this moment with which you have to deal ? There is not only the Church which it is proposed to disestablish, but you have the Regium Donum, which, if the Church be disestablished, must necessarily be withdrawn; and you have, if these two things happen, a grant to Maynooth, the Act conferring which must necessarily be repealed. Now, in doing these things the House will observe that we shall disturb all the three principal sects or Churches in Ireland, and we can only do it, or attempt to do it, on the ground that we are about to accomplish some great public good. Well, my proposal, which some hon. Gentlemen, I dare say, will have some vague idea of, was made with the view of easing Parliament in the great transaction, from which I believe it cannot escape. It is a great thing in statesmanship, when you are about to make a change which is inevitable, and which shocks some, disturbs more, and makes hesitating people hesitate still more — it is a great thing, I say, if you can make the past slide into the future without any great jar, and without any great shock to the feelings of the people. And in doing these things the Govern ment can always afford to be generous and gracious to those whom they are obliged to disturb. We have found that this has been the case when needful changes have been proposed ; for instance, hon. Gentlemen 14 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I4, will recollect, when tithe commutation for Ireland was passed, that there was a certain concession made to the land owners of Ireland, to induce them to acquiesce in the proposition of Parlia ment. We know that when slavery was abolished a considerable sum of money was voted. Lord Derby pro posed in this House that compensation should be given to the slaveowners. If it had not been for that, slavery would before long have been abolished by violence. But Parliament thought it was much better to take the step it did take, and I am not, at this period of time, about for a moment to dispute its wisdom. In all these things we en deavour, if we are forced to make a great change, to make it in such a man ner as that we shall obtain the acqui escence and the support, if possible, of those who are most likely to be nearly affected by it. Suppose we were going to disestablish the Church of Scotland — and I understand that there are a great number belonging to the Estab lished Church of Scotland who are coming round to the opinion that it would be much to their benefit, and I think for the benefit of their Church, if it were disestablished — if we were going to disestablish the Church of Scotland or the Church of England, no person for a moment would suppose that, after having taken all the tithes and all the income from these Churches, you would also take all the churches and all the parsonage-houses from the Presbyterian people of Scotland, or from the Epis copal Church people in England. You would not do anything of that kind. You would do to them as we should wish, if we were in their position, that the Government and Parliament should do to us. Do what you have to do thoroughly for the good of the country, but do it in such a manner as shall do least harm, and as shall gain the largest amount of acquiescence from those whom you are about to affect. I ven ture to say that such is the course we should take about Ireland. I am very free in speaking on these matters. I am not a Catholic in the sense of Rome. I am not a Protestant in the sense in which that word is used in Ireland. I am not connected with a powerful sect in England. I think, from my training, and education, and associa tion, and thought on these questions, I stand in a position which enables me to take as fair and unimpassioned a view of the matter as perhaps any man in the House. Now, if I were asked to give my advice, and if I am not asked I shall give it — I should propose that where there are congregations in Ireland— I am speaking now, of course, of the present Established Church — who would undertake to keep in repair the church in which they have been accustomed to worship, and the parsonage-house in which their ministers live, Parliament should leave them in the possession of their churches and of their parsonage- houses. And I believe I speak the sen timent of every Catholic Member on this side of the House, and probably of every intelligent Catholic in Ireland, not only of the laity but of the hierardiy and the priesthood, when I say that they would regard such a course as that on the part of Parliament as just, under the circumstances in which we are placed. Well, then, of course there would be no more bishops appointed by the Crown, and that institution in Ire land would come to an end, except it were continued upon the principle upon which bishops are appointed in Scot land. All State connection would be entirely abolished. You would then have all alike. The Protestants would have their churches and parsonage- houses as they have now. But the re pairs of them, and the support of their ministers, would be provided by their congregations, or by such an organisa tion as they chose to form. The Catho lics would provide, as they have hitherto done so meritoriously and with a re markable liberality, for themselves. No greater instance of generosity and fidelity to their Church can be seen in the world than that which has been manifested by the Catholic people of IRELAND. VIII. Ireland. They have their churches and their priests' houses in many places. There is no pretence for meddling with them. In the north of Ireland, where the Presbyterians are most numerous, they would also have their places of worship, and their ministers' houses as they have now. All the Churches, therefore, in that respect would be on an equality. Well, now, the real point of this question, and which will create in all probability much feeling in Par liament and in the country, is, what should be done on the question of the Maynooth Grant, and on the question of the Regium Donum ? They must be treated alike, I presume. If you pre serve the life interests of the ministers and bishops of the Established Church, it may be right to preserve the life interests of the ministers of the Presby terian Church, and it may be right also in some way or other to make some provision that shall not in the least de gree bring them under the control of the State. And some provision might have to be made to the Catholic Church in lieu of the Maynooth Grant, which, of course, you would be obliged to with draw. These are points which I will not discuss in detail. I merely indicate them for the sake of showing to the House, and to a great number of people who are regarding it with even more feeling than we do, what are some of the difficulties of this question — difficul ties which must be met — difficulties which it will require all the moderation, all the Christian feeling, and all the patriotism which this House can muster on both sides of it, with the view of settling this question pennanently, and to the general satisfaction of the three kingdoms. Now, I will go no further, but to say that whatever is done — if a single sixpence is given by Parliament, in lieu of the Maynooth Grant, or in lieu of the Regium Donum, it must be given on these terms only — and on that matter I think Lord Russell has com mitted a great enor — that it becomes the absolute property of the Catholics or of the Presbyterians — it must be as completely their property as the pro perty of the great Wesleyan body in this country, or of the Independents, or of the Baptists, belongs to these bodies. It must be property which Parliament can never pretend to control, or regu late, or withdraw. And having consented to that condi tion, the three Churches of Ireland would be started as voluntary Churches, and instead of fighting, as I am sorry to say they have been fighting far longer than within the memory of man, I hope soon there would be a competition among them which should do most for the education, the morals, and the Chris tianity of the population who are with in their instruction and guidance. Now, Protestants in this countiy — I think almost all Protestants — object very strongly to Rome. The Nonconform ists object to endowments. They some times, I think, confound establishments with endowments. I think it absolutely essential that establishments should cease, and that there should be nothing in the way of endowment unless it be some small provision such as that which I have indicated; which it might be necessary to make when you are with drawing certain things which the Churches in Ireland had supposed were theirs in perpetuity. Now, one word which I would say to the Nonconformist people of Eng land and Scotland, if the House will allow me to speak, is this — they should bear in mind that the whole of this property which is now in the possession of the Established Church of Ireland is Irish property. It does not belong to Scotland or to England, and it would be a measure intolerable and not to be thought of, that it should be touched or dealt with in any manner that is not in accordance with the feelings and the interests of the people of Ireland. Let any man who to-morrow criticises this part of my speech ask himself what an Irish Parliament freely elected would do with the ecclesiastical funds of Ire land. I think the Presbyterians of Scot land, the Churchmen and Nonconform- 14 — 2 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I4, ists of England, have no right to suppose themselves to be judges with regard to religious matters in Ireland. They have a perfect right to say to Parliament through their representatives, ' We will discontinue the State Church in Ireland, and we will create no other State Churches.' But that seems to be about the extent of the interference which they are entitled to in this matter. I hope I have explained with tole rable clearness the views which I have felt it my duty to lay before the House on the occasion of this great ques tion. The House will see, and I think hon. Gentlemen opposite will admit, that I am at least disposed to treat it as a great question which, if it be dealt with, should be dealt with in the most generous, gracious, and, if you like, tender manner by Parliament, as re spects the feelings and interests of all who are most directly concerned. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secre tary, in his speech last night, said that this proposal to disestablish the Estab lished Church of Ireland, was, in point of fact, in some sort a revolution. This, at any rate, I am satisfied, would be not only an entirely bloodless revolu tion, but a revolution full of blessing to the Irish people. I have not said a word — I never said a word in this House, and, I believe, never out of it, to depreciate the cha racter of the clergymen of the Estab lished Church in Ireland. I think no religious ministers are placed in a more unfortunate position, and I am satisfied that many of them feel it to be so. I have not the least doubt, when this transaction is once accomplished, that they will breathe more freely. I believe they will be more potent in their minis trations, and that their influence, which must, or-ought to be, considerable, will be far more extensive than it has been, and far more beneficial in the districts in which they live. But being so great a question, as the Home Secretary de scribed it, it can only be settled by mutual and reasonable concession. The main principle being secured, that State Church supremacy is abolished in Ire land, and that the Irish Churches are henceforth to be free Churches upon the voluntary principle, then I should be willing, and I would recommend every person in the country whom my voice may reach, to make any reasonable concession that can be suggested in the case. So anxious am I that it should be done, that I should be delighted to co operate with the right hon. Gentleman, and with hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, in support of any just measure for settling this great question. But I say, if it ever does come to be dealt with by a great and powerful Minister, let it be dealt with in a great and generous spirit. I would counsel to all men moderation and justice. It is as necessary to Protestants as to Catho lics and to Nonconformists that they should endeavour to get rid of passion in discussing this question. We are, after all, of one religion. I imagine that there will come a time in the history of the world when men will be astonished that Catholics and Pro testants have had so much animosity against and suspicion of each other. I accept the belief in a grand passage, which I once met with in the writings of the illustrious founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. He says that ' The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious, and devout souls are everywhere of one re ligion, and when death has taken off the mask they will know one another, though the diverse liveries they wear here make them strangers.' Now, may I ask the House to act in this spirit, and then our. work will be easy. The noble Lord, towards the conclusion of his speech, spoke of the cloud which rests at present over Ireland. It is a dark and heavy cloud, and its darkness extends over the feelings of men in all parts of the British Empire. But there is a consolation which we may all take to ourselves. An inspired king and bard and prophet has left us words which are not only the expression of a fact, but which we may take' as the utter ance of a prophecy. He says, ' To the IRELAND. VIII. 213 upright there ariseth light in the dark ness.' Let us try in this matter to be upright. Let us try to be just. That cloud will be dispelled. The dangers which surround us will vanish, and we may yet have the happiness of leav ing to our children the heritage of an honourable citizenship in a united and prosperous Empire. ^f>&*~ IRELAND. IX. HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL i, 1868. [This speech was made in the debate on Mr. Gladstone's resolutions for disestablishing the Irish Church.] The House will not expect me to follow the legal argument of the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down. I entertain a firm belief that those legal cobwebs which are spread, and which are supposed to, and do in the minds of many Gentlemen, inter pose between the completion of a great act of justice, will be swept away before long by the almost unanimous opinion of the people of the three kingdoms. During this debate, which has yet lasted only two nights, there has been, if not a remarkable change of opinion, a remarkable change of expression. Last night we had an interesting speech from the noble Lord who generally sits opposite me, the noble Lord the Mem ber for Stamford. I refer only to the beginning of his speech, in which he spoke of his affection for the principle of a Church Establishment. There was a hesitation in his manner; he had a strong love for his principle, but it ap peared to me that he thought the time was come when even that cherished principle would have to be surren dered. From the Treasury bench we had a speech from the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and when he sat down it is difficult to say what was the precise impression made upon the House; but I think, on the whole, the impression made on the other side of the House — his own side — was by no means a comfortable one. Now to me it is, and I think to the House it is, a misfortune that we have a Government that speaks with a dif ferent voice from night to night. We had it last year, and I presume, from the example of the debate which lately took place on the motion of the hon. Member for Cork, and from the debate on this motion, we are about to see a repetition of it. The fact is, that the position of the Government is one of great difficulty and perplexity; to speak plainly, it is one which I should call, in our Con stitutional system, altogether unnatural. They are the Ministers, the leaders of a minority of the House, and whilst they sat as leaders of the minority in opposition they defended the principles of their party, and they apparently re garded all their past career with satis faction; but the moment they are transferred to the Treasury bench they find themselves in this difficulty, that although their party may still wish to cling to their past opinions, there is something in the very air, there is something throughout the mind of the APRIL I, 1868. IRELAND. IX. whole kingdom, which teaches them that their past opinions are impossible in their new position. The noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn made a speech not long ago at Bristol, and in that speech he expressed what 1 am quite sure were his honest opinions with regard to the condition of Ireland. He stated that the condition of Ireland was one painful and dangerous, and to us, in appear ance at least, discreditable. He said we had a strange and perplexing pro blem to solve; that in Ireland there was a miserable state of things. Then he said, ' If we look for a remedy, who can give us an intelligible answer? Ireland is the question of the hour.' And that is not altogether at variance — in fact, I should say not at all at variance — with the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who told us, as far as he knew, the facts about his country. But immediately afterwards we had the description of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Govern ment, to the effect that there was no crisis at all — that, in point of fact, the condition of Ireland was a normal con dition, and that there was no necessity for anything remarkable or unusual in the legislation that was required. Now, to-night we have had a speech from the Home Secretary. I may say that every speaker on that side of the House has admitted that his speech is entirely in opposition, in its tone, its purpose, and its principle, to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn. It seems to me that the Home Secretary to-night answered the Foreign Secretary of last night — and I suppose if the de bate goes on until Thursday, probably the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, or perhaps the Secretary of State for India, will answer the speech of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. But all this shows us that the House is in a wrong position. We have a mi nority in office which cannot assert its own views with safety, nor can it with any more safety adopt our views; and thus, when, on that side of the House, a Minister gets up and makes what is called a liberal speech on this ques tion to us who are in opposition, that creates discontent ; and then another Minister rises and makes a speech of an exactly opposite character, to recon cile that discontent. There is, in fact, confusion and chaos in the House. We have a Government which is not a Government- — and we have an Oppo sition which is not an Opposition, be cause really we do not oppose anything that you propose. Your propositions are not based upon your own principles, which you held when you sat on this side of the House, but on our prin ciples, and therefore we are not in opposition at all, but we help you as much as possible to enforce, not your own principles, but ours. Whatever compensation it may be to right hon. Gentlemen who sit on that bench and enjoy the dignities and emoluments of office, I think there are many honour able men on whom I am looking at this moment who do not observe the course of these proceedings with entire satisfaction. But now, notwithstanding these diffi culties, there remains this great question which we must discuss, and which, if possible, we must settle. I say, not withstanding some observations to the contrary, that the people of the three kingdoms are looking with anxious sus pense at the course which Parliament may take on this question. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary on one occasion spoke of this question, of this proposition, as being something in the nature of a revolution. But, if it be a revolution, after all it is not so great a one as we might suppose from the force and energy of the speech which he has delivered to-night — a speech which, although I differ from his views, was, I must say, a very good speech— in which he brought into the House a good deal of the energy of the people of that great county (Yorkshire) from which he comes. But we are now about to deal with a question which only 2l6 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL I, affects, according to the census, some thing under 700,000 people. I observe hon. Gentlemen talk of the Protestants of Ireland as being one-fourth of the whole population — of being a million and a half. All that is fanciful exaggera tion. According to the census the Epis copalians are not more than 700,000, and let hon. Gentlemen bear this in mind — when the census enumerators go round, if a man is not a Catholic or a Presbyterian, he is put down, unless he can state he is of some other sect, as an Episcopalian. And judging from what we know, there must be out of the 700,000 a considerable number who never go to church, and, politically or religiously, have no interest in it. There fore, I believe, speaking correctly, it would not be possible to show that there are Episcopalians in Ireland in in timate connection with the Established Church to the amount of more than from half a million to 600,000. Now, this will not come to more than 100,000 families, that is, will not be very much more than the population of Liverpool, or Manchester, or Glasgow ; so that, in point of fact, this question, which is held to be a revolution, — this great question affects only a population equal to that of the city of Glasgow, or of Liverpool, or of Manchester. And it is for a population so small as this, I am told — for I am not versed in com putations of this kind — you have no less than twelve bishops and archbishops, and that you have devoted for their services — for their religious services — not less than the annual income arising from a capital sum estimated to be, at least, ten or twelve millions sterling. Now, if their system of teaching is really very good, I must say there ought to be in Ireland a more perfectly moral and religious population among the Church Protestants than there is in any other country in the world. What, then, are we about to do? What is the House about to do if we adopt the resolutions of the right hon. Member for South Lancashire ? If the House accept the advice of the majority sitting on this side, what will be done ? We are not going to commit any vital wrong upon that one city population of 500,000 or 600,000. When we have done everything that I have suggested should be done, we shall leave them in as comfortable a position as the ma jority of the people of Scotland are in at this moment. We shall leave them as well off as eight or nine-tenths of the population of Wales are ; we shall leave them as well off as half, and not the least religious half, of the people of England are ; we shall leave them as well off as the English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish people who form the population in our colonies, whether in North America or Australia. And what can be more monstrous than for Gentlemen to come here from Ireland — and there may be some from England — and tell us we are bringing about a revolution, that we are committing an enormous oppres sion, that we are hazarding the loyalty of the people of the North of Ireland, when, after all, the most and worst which any of us proposes to do is that the Church population of Ireland will be left at least as well off as any of the various populations of the Empire I have just described? I hope hon. Gentlemen opposite will be convinced that it is not a bottomless abyss we are going to plunge their friends into. Although it is a very small question for the Church in Ireland and for the Church people, I hold it is an infinitely larger question for the Catholic popu lation. The hon. and learned Gentie- man who spoke last relies much upon law. I suppose it will be admitted that there are only two pretences on which this State Church — the Protes tant Church — can exist in Ireland. The one is religious — the other is political. Now, has anybody been able to show that, as a religious institution, it has not been a deplorable failure? because clearly, the original intention, the ori ginal hope was, that the people of Ire land would be drawn from the Church of Rome and brought into harmony with the Church of England. I under- 1868. IRELAND. IX. 217 take to say, from the time of its first establishment until now, reckoning up all the Catholics on the one side and the Protestants on the other, that it could not be shown, and is not to be believed, that it has ever added really one person in eveiy hundred persons to the actual number of Protestants in the kingdom of Ireland. It has been an entire failure — a failure deplorable, and almost ludicrous, as an engine for con verting the Catholic population. But it has not only not made Catholics into Protestants, but it has made Catholics in Ireland more intensely Roman than the members of that Church are found to be in any other country in Europe or in America. And what is more than that, I think it can be demonstrated that the existence of the Protestant Church in Ireland, whether missionaiy or not in pretence, has not only not converted the Catholics themselves, but has made it absolutely impossible that anybody else, or any other Church, should convert them. Because, if you look how the Church has been con nected with the State, and with the poli tics of the' countiy, with the supremacy of the landed proprietors, with the su premacy of the Protestant party, with all the dark records of the past, you will see the effect has been to make Catho licism in Ireland not only a faith, but absolutely a patriotism. I think I might appeal to every Mem ber of the House who now hears me whether, if he had been placed in Ire land with his father before him among the Catholic population — I might ask him whether he would not. have felt that if he threw off his allegiance to his Church, and if he entered the portals of this garrison Church, that it would have been to him not only a change of faith, but a denial as it were of his birth and of his country. I have felt always in considering this question — and I have considered it much for twenty-five years past — that all the circumstances of that Church in Ireland have been such as to stimulate the heart of every Catholic to a stronger adherence to his own faith, and to a determined and unchangeable rejection of the faith and of the Church which were offered to him by the hands of conquest. There is one point on this, too, which is important, that the more you have produced dissatisfaction with Imperial rule in Ireland, the more you have thrown the population into the hands of Rome. Now, I hope I shall offend no Catholic Member in this House when I say that I consider it one of the greatest calamities of the world that there are in many countries millions of Catholic population who are liable to be directed in much of their conduct, and often in their political conduct, through their bishops and clergy from the centre of the city of Rome. I think that is a misfortune — I think it is a misfortune to the freedom of the world. And I think, moreover, that it is a misfortune to every Catholic Church in every country, for it tends to prevent it from being wholly national, and it prevents also such changes and such reformations as, I believe, are necessary in the progress of every Church. We see some result of this in other countries of Europe. Notably, at this moment, in Austria, even in that countiy which we lately thought was the very last in the race of freedom, there is a content going on with Rome. But there pro bably is no country in Europe at this moment in which the Catholic Church and population are more entirely sub ject than in Ireland to the direct influ ence of a certain number of persons, of whom most of us know nothing, who pull the strings of the Catholic world in the city of Rome. I attribute much of this, which I think a great evil, to the existence of the Protestant Church in Ireland. You know perfectly well that the great discontent of Ireland is chiefly entertained by the Catholic po pulation, and you know that this popu lation is even at this moment, more than it was some years ago, subject directly to political influences from Rome. But I am satisfied that it is for the interest of the Catholic population, and that it is for the interest of this great nation SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. and of this Imperial Government, that whatsoever be the tie between the Catholic population of Ireland and the Government in Ireland, we ought at least to take away every obstacle that can lessen in the smallest degree the loyalty of that people to the Imperial Crown. And if this Church has failed as a religious institution, how stands it as a political institution 1 It was intended not only to convert the Catholics, but to secure the Union. An hon. Gentle man, with a courage that I should not like to imitate, said that if the 5th Article of the Act of Union should be altered, then in point of fact the Union is as good as abolished. I. see the hon. Gentleman up there, and I think he is not the only one who has said it in the course of this discussion. It is a very old and not a very strange de vice to expect the people to be made loyal through the instrumentality of the clergy. I know that many centuries ago a monk of some celebrity at the Court of Louis of Bavaria told that monarch, ' You defend me with the sword, and I will defend you with the pen.' We have been during all this time defending this Church with the sword. The sword has scarcely ever been out of before him, and his career will be unmarked by any dis tinguished services to his countiy. When the Chancellor of the Ex chequer entered office, doubtless he hoped, by great services to his country, to build up a reputation such as a man may labour for and live for. Every man in this House, even those most opposed to him, acknowledged the re markable capacity which he displayed during the last session, and the country has set its seal to this — that his financial measures, in the remission and readjust ment of taxation, were worthy of the approbation of the great body of the people. The right hon. Gentleman has been blamed for his speech at Man chester, not for making the speech, but because it differed from the tone of the speech made by the noble Lord, his colleague in office, at Greenock. I ob served that difference. There can be no doubt that there has been, and that there is now, a great difference of opinion in the Cabinet on this Eastern question. It could not be otherwise ; and Govern ment has gone on from one step to another; they have drifted — to use the happy expression of Lord Clarendon to describe what is so traly unhappy — they have drifted from a state of peace to a state of war ; and to no Member of the Government could this state of things be more distressing than to the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, for it dashed from him the hopes he entertained that session after session, as trade extended and the public revenue increased, he would find himself the beneficent dis penser of blessings to the poor, and indeed to all classes of the people of this kingdom. Where is the surplus now ? No man dare even ask for it, or for any portion of it. Here is my right hon. Friend and Colleague, who is resolved on the abo lition of the newspaper stamp. I can hardly imagine a more important ques tion than that, if it be desirable for the people to be instructed in their social and political obligations; and yet my i854- RUSSIA. I. 237 right hon. Friend has scarcely the cou rage to ask for the abolition of that odious tax. I believe, indeed, that my right hon. Friend has a plan to submit to the Chancellor by which the aboli tion of the stamp may be accomplished without sacrifice to the Exchequer, but that I will not go into at present. But this year's surplus is gone, and next year's surplus is gone with it ; and you have already passed a Bill to double the income-tax. And it is a mistake to suppose that you will obtain double the sum by simply doubling the tax. Many persons make an average of their in comes, and make a return accordingly. The average will not be sustained at the bidding of Parliament ; and profits that were considerable last year, will hence forth show a great diminution, or will have vanished altogether. I mention this for the benefit of the country gentle men, because it is plain that real pro perty, lands and houses, must bear the burden of this war ; for I will undertake to say, that the Chancellor of the Ex chequer will prefer to leave that bench, and will take his seat in some other quarter of the House, rather than re trace the steps which Sir Robert Peel took in 1842. He is not the promoter of this war; his speeches have shown that he is anxious for peace, and that he hoped to be a Minister who might dispense blessings by the remission of taxes to the people ; and I do not be lieve the right hon. Gentleman will consent to be made the instrument to reimpose upon the country the Excise duties which have been repealed, or the Import duties which in past times in flicted such enormous injury upon trade. The property-tax is the lever, or the weapon, with which the proprietors of lands and houses in this kingdom will have to support the ' integrity and inde pendence' of the Ottoman Empire. Gentlemen, I congratulate you, that every man of you has a Turk upon his shoulders. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) spoke of our ' triumphant posi tion' — the position in which the Go vernment has placed us by pledging this country to support the Turks. I see nothing like a triumph in the fact, that in addition to our many duties to our own country, we have accepted the defence of twenty millions or more of the people of Turkey, on whose behalf, but, I believe, not for their benefit, we are about to sacrifice the blood and treasure of England. But there are odier penalties and other considerations. I will say little about the Reform Bill, because, as the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) is aware, I do not regard it as an unmixed blessing. But I think even hon. Gentlemen opposite will admit that it would be well if the representa tion of the people in this House were in a more satisfactory state, and that it is unfortunate that we are not permitted, calmly and with mutual good feeling, to consider the question, undisturbed by the thunder of artillery and undismayed by the disasters which are inseparable from a state of war. With regard to trade, I can speak with some authority as to the state of things in Lancashire. The Russian trade is not only at an end, but it is made an offence against the law to deal with any of our customers in Russia. The German trade is most injuriously affected by the uncertainty which pre vails on the continent of Europe. The Levant trade, a very important branch, is almost extinguished in the present state of affairs in Greece, Turkey in Europe, and Syria. All property in trade is diminishing in value, whilst its burdens are increasing. The funds have fallen in value to the amount of about 1 20,000,000/. sterling, and railway pro perty is quoted at about 80,000,000/. less than was the case a year ago. I do not pretend to ask the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) to put these losses, these great destructions of pro perty, against the satisfaction he feels at the ' triumphant position ' at which we have arrived. He may content him self with the dream that we are sup porting the ' integrity and independence' of Turkey, though I doubt whether 238 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 31, bringing three foreign armies on her soil, raising insurrections in her pro vinces, and hopelessly exhausting her finances, is a rational mode of main taining her as an independent Power. But we are sending out 30,000 troops to Turkey, and in that number are not included the men serving on board the fleets. Here are 30,000 lives ! There is a thrill of horror sometimes when a single life is lost, and we sigh at the loss of a friend, or of a casual acquaint ance! But here we are in danger of losing — and I give the opinions of military men and not my own merely — 10,000, or it may be 20,000 lives, that may be sacrificed in this straggle. I have never pretended to any sympathy for the military profession — but I have sympathy for my fellow-men and fellow- countrymen, wherever they may be. I have heard very melancholy accounts of the scenes which have been witnessed in the separations from families occa sioned by this expedition to the East. But it will be said, and probably the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton will say, that it is a just war, a glorious war, and that I am full of morbid senti mentality, and have introduced topics not worthy to be mentioned in Parlia ment. But these are matters affecting the happiness of the homes of England, and we, who are the representatives and guardians of those homes, when the grand question of war is before us, should know at least that we have a case — that success is probable — and that an object is attainable, which may be commensurate with the cost of war. There is another point which gives me some anxiety. You are boasting of an alliance with France. Alliances are dangerous things. It is an alliance with Turkey that has drawn us into this war. I would not advise alliances with any nation, but I would cultivate friendship with all nations. I would have no alliance that might drag us into mea sures which it is neither our duty nor our interest to undertake. By our pre sent alliance with Turkey, Turkey can not make peace without the consent of England and France ; and by this boasted alliance with France we may find ourselves involved in great difficul ties at some future period of these transactions. I have endeavoured to look at the whole of this question, and I declare, after studying the correspondence which has been laid on the table — knowing what I know of Russia and of Turkey — seeing what I see of Austria and of Prussia — feeling the enormous perils to which this country is now exposed, I am amazed at the course which the Government have pursued, and I am horrified at the results to which their policy must inevitably tend. I do not say this in any spirit of hostility to the Government. I have never been hos tile to them. I have once or twice felt it my duty to speak, with some degree of sharpness, of particular Members of the Administration, but I suspect that in private they would admit that my censure was merited. But I have never entertained a party hostility to the Government. I know something of the difficulties they have had to en counter, and I have no doubt that, in taking office, they acted in as patriotic a spirit as is generally expected from Members of this House. So long as their course was one which I could sup port, or even excuse, they have had my support. But this is not an ordinary question; it is not a question of re forming the University of Oxford, or of abolishing ' ministers' money ' in Ireland; the matter now before us affects the character, the policy, and the vital interests of the Empire ; and when I think the Government have commit ted a grievous — it may be a fatal error — I am bound to tell them so. I am told indeed that the war is popu lar, and that it is foolish and eccentric to oppose it. I doubt if the war is very popular in this House. But as to what is, or has been popular, I may ask, what was more popular than the American war ? There were persons lately living in Manchester who had seen the re- craiting party going through the prin- i854. RUSSIA. I. 239 cipal streets of that city, accompanied by the parochial clergy in full canoni cals, exhorting the people to enlist to put down the rebels in the American colonies. Where is now the popularity of that disastrous and disgraceful war, and who is the man to defend it ? But if hon. Members will turn to the corre spondence between George III and Lord North on the subject of that war, they will find that the King's chief argument for continuing the war was, that it would be dishonourable in him to make peace so long as the war was popular with the people. Again, what war could be more popular than the French war? Has not the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) said, not long ago, in this House, that peace was rendered difficult if not impossible by the con duct of the English press in 1803 ? For myself, I do not trouble myself whether my conduct in Parliament is popular or not. I care only that it shall be wise and just as regards the permanent in terests of my countiy, and I despise from the bottom of my heart the man who speaks a word in favour of this war, or of any war which he believes might have been avoided, merely be cause the press and a portion of the people urge the Government to enter into it. I recollect a passage of a distinguished French writer and statesman which bears strongly upon our present posi tion : he says, — ' The country which can comprehend and act upon the lessons which God has given it in the past events of its histoiy, is secure in the most imminent crises of its fate.' The past events of our histoiy have taught me that the intervention of this countiy in European wars is not only unnecessary, but calamitous ; that we have rarely come out of such interven tion having succeeded in the objects we fought for ; that a debt of 800,000,000/. sterling has been incurred by the policy which the noble Lord approves, appa rently for no other reason than that it dates from the time of William III ; and that, not debt alone has been incurred, but that we have left Europe at least as much in chains as before a single effort was made by us to rescue her from tyranny. I believe, if this country, seventy years ago, had adopted the principle of non-intervention in every case where her interests were not di rectly and obviously assailed, that she would have been saved from much of the pauperism and brutal crimes by which our Government and people have alike been . disgraced. This country might have been a garden, every dwell ing might have been of marble, and every person who treads its soil might have been sufficiently educated. We should indeed have had less of military glory. We might have had neither Trafalgar nor Waterloo ; but we should have set the high example of a Chris tian nation, free in its institutions, cour teous and just in its conduct towards all foreign States, and resting its policy on the unchangeable foundation of Christian morality. -&? RUSSIA. n. ENLISTMENT OF FOREIGNERS BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 22, 1854. From Hansard. At this hour of the night I shall not make a speech ; but I wish to say a few things in answer to the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, who has very strangely misapprehended — I am not allowed to say ' misrepre sented ' — what fell from my hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding. The noble Lord began by saying that my hon. Friend had charged the Govern ment with making war in something of a propagandist spirit in favour of nation alities throughout the Continent; but that was the exact contrary of what my hon. Friend did say. What he said was, that that portion of the people of this country who had clamoured for war, and whose opinion formed the basis whereupon the Government grounded their plea for the popularity of the war, were in favour of the setting up of nationalities ; but my hon. Friend showed that the Government had no such object, and the war no such tendency. The next misrepresenta tion was, that my hon. Friend had spoken in favour of the status quo; but there is not the shadow of a shade of truth in that statement. What my hon. Friend said was precisely the contrary ; but the noble Lord, arguing from his own misapprehension of my hon. Friend's meaning, went on then to show that it would not do to establish a peace on the status quo terms, thus knocking down a position which no body had set up. The noble Lord was also guilty of another mistake with reference to an observation of my hon. Friend as to the character and position of the Turks. We have referred over and over again to a monstrous state ment made by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton as to the im provement of the Turks — a statement which is contradicted by all facts. To night, with a disingenuousness which I should be ashamed to use in argument — [Cries of ' Oh ! '] — it is very well for hon. Gentlemen who come down to cheer a minister to cry ' Oh ! ' but is it a fact, or is it not? Is there a man who hears me who does not know per fectly well, when the noble Lord said that the Turks had improved within the last twenty years more than any other nation in Europe, that the statement referred not to the Christians, whose rights and interests we were defending, but to the character of the Mahometan population ? But to-night, with a dis ingenuousness which I could not, con descend to be guilty of, the noble Lord has assumed that the statement referred i854- RUSSIA. II. 241 to the condition of the Christian popu lation. The real question was, as every hon. Gentleman knows, What was the con dition of the Mahometan ? and there is not a Gentleman in this House who is not aware that the Mahometan portion of the population of the Turkish Em pire is in a decaying and dying con dition, and that the two great Empires which have undertaken to set it on its legs again will find it about the most difficult task in which they ever were engaged. What do your own officers say ? Here is an extract from a letter which appeared in the papers the other day: — ' They ought to set these rascally Turks to mend them [the roads], which might easily be done, as under the clay there is plenty of capital stone. They are, I am sorry to say, bringing more of these brutes into the Crimea, which makes more mouths to feed, without being of any use.' I have seen a private letter, too, from an able and distinguished officer in the Crimea, who says — ' Half of us do not know what we are fighting for, and the other half only pray that we may not be fighting for the Turks.' The only sign of improvement which has been manifested that I know of is, that on a great emergency, when their Empire, under the advice of Her Majesty's Government, and that of their Ambas sador, was placed in a situation of great peril, the Turks managed to make an expiring effort, and to get up an army which the Government, so far as I can hear, has since permitted to be almost destroyed. Another sign of improvement is, perhaps, that they have begun to wear browsers; but as to thejr commerce, their industry, or their revenue, nothing can be in a worse condition. You have now two Empires attempting to set the Turkish Empire up again ; and it is said that a third great Empire is also about to engage in the task. The Turk wants to borrow money, but he cannot borrow it to-day in the London market at less than from eight to nine per cent. Russia, on the other hand, is an Empire against which three great Empires, if Turkey can be counted one still, are now combined, and it is said that a fourth great Empire will soon join the ranks of its enemies. But Russian funds at this moment are very little lower than the stock of the London and Norfh-Western Railway. You have engaged to set this Turkish Em pire up again — a task in which every body knows you must fail. — and you have persuaded the Turk to enter into a contest, one of the very first proceed ings in which has forced him to mort gage to the English capitalist a very large portion — and the securest portion, too, of his revenues — namely, that which he derives from Egypt, amount ing in fact, in a fiscal and financial point of view, to an actual dismember ment of the Turkish Empire, by a sepa ration of Egypt from it. Why is it that the noble Lord has to-night come forward as the defender of the Greeks ? Is it that he has discovered, when this war is over, that Turkey,' which he has undertaken to protect, the Empire which he is to defend and sustain against the Emperor of Russia, will have been smothered under his affec tionate embrace? or, to quote the powerful language of the Times, when the Vienna note was refused, that what ever else may be the result of the war in which Turkey has plunged Europe, this one thing is certain, that at its conclusion there may be no Turkish Empire to talk about ? The noble Lord quoted a letter which I wrote some time ago, and which, like others who have discussed it, he found it not easy to answer. In that letter I referred to Don Pacifico's case; and I am sure that the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton will remember a despatch which he received through Baron Brunnow, from Count Nesselrode, on that subject, — a despatch 16 2 42 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. which I think the House will for give my reading to it on the present occasion, as it gives the Russian Go vernment's estimation of that act of 'material guarantee' on the part of England : — ' It remains to be seen whether Great Britain, abusing the advantages which are afforded her by her immense maritime superiority, intends henceforth to pursue an isolated policy, without caring for those engagements which bind her to the other Cabinets ; whether she intends to disengage herself from every obligation, as well as from all community of action, and to authorize all great Powers, on every fitting opportunity, to recognize to the weak no other rule but their own will, no other right but their own physical strength. Your Excellency will please to read this despatch to Lord Palmerston, and to give him a copy of it.' If there had been no more temper — no more sense — no more unity in the negotiations which took place with regard to this matter, in all probability we might have had a war about it. It was a case in which Russia might have gone to war with this country, if she had been so minded. But Russia did not do that. Fortunately, the negotia tions that ensued settled that question without bringing that disaster upon Europe. But the noble Lord again misinteipreted my hon. Friend (Mr. Cobden). I appeal to every Gentleman who heard my hon. Friend's speech whether the drift of it was not this— that in this quarrel, Prussia, and cer tainly Austria, had a nearer and stronger interest than England, and that he could not understand why the terms which Austria might consider fair and safe for herself and for Turkey, might not be accepted with honour by this countiy and by France? Now, I am prepared to show that, from the beginning of this dispute, there is not a single thing which Austria wished to do in the course of the negotiations, or even which France wished to do, that the Government of the noble Lord did not systematically refuse its assent to, and that the noble Lord's Government is alone responsible for the failure in every particular point which took place in these negotiations. I will not trou ble the House by going into the histoiy of these negotiations now, further than just to state two facts, which will not take more than a few sentences. The noble Lord referred to the note which Russia wanted Turkey to sign, known as the Menchikoff note ; but the noble Lord knows as well as I do, that when the French Ambassador, M. De la Cour, went to Constantinople, or whilst he was at Constantinople, he received express instructions from the Emperor of the French not to take upon himself the responsibility of incit ing the Sultan to reject that note. [' No.'] I know this is the fact, be cause it is stated in Lord Cowley's despatch to the noble Lord. I am expressing no opinion on the propriety of what was here done ; I simply state the fact : and it was through the interference of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe — acting, I pre sume, in accordance with instructions from our Cabinet, and promising the intervention of the fleets — that the rejection of that note was secured. The next fact I have to mention is this. When in September, last year, the last propositions were drawn up by Counts Buol and Nesselrode, and offered at Olmutz by the Emperor, as a final settlement of the question, although Austria and Prussia were in favour of those propositions ; though Lord West moreland himself said (I do not quote his exact words, but their substance) that they were of such a nature as might be received ; thus indicating his favourable opinion of them ; and though, likewise, the Emperor of the French himself declared that they guarded all the points in which Eng land and France were concerned (for this was stated by Count Walewski when he said that the Emperor was prepared to order his Ambassador at Constantinople to sign them along 1854- R USSIA. II. 243 with the other Ambassadors, and to offer them to the Porte in exchange for the Vienna note), nevertheless, the Earl of Clarendon wrote, not in a very states manlike manner in such an emergency, but in almost a contemptuous tone, that our Government would not, upon any consideration, have anything fur ther to do with the Vienna note. The rejection, first of the amended Men chikoff note, and then of the Olmiitz note, was a policy adopted solely by the Government of this country, and only concurred in, but not recom mended, by the French Government and the other Governments of Europe. Whether this policy was right or wrong, there can be no doubt of the fact ; and I am prepared to stake my reputa tion for accuracy and for a knowledge of the English language on this inter pretation of the documents which have been laid before us. That being so, on what pretence could we expect that Austria should go to war in company with us for objects far beyond what she thought satisfactory at tie beginning? or why should we ask the Emperor of the French to go to war for objects which he did not contemplate, and to insist on conditions which, in the month of September of last year, he thought wholly unnecessary ? But one fact more I hope the House will allow me to state. There is a despatch in existence which was never produced to the people of this countiy, but which made its first appearance in a St. Petersburg newspaper, and was afterwards published in the Paris journals — a despatch in which the Emperor of the French, or his Minister, urged the Russian Government to accept the Vienna note on the express ground — I give the exact words — that ' its general sense differed in nothing from the sense of the original propo sitions of Prince Menchikoff.' Why, Sir, can there be dissimulation more extraordinary — can there be guilt more conclusive than that this Government should act as it did, after it had re commended the Emperor of Russia to accept the Vienna note? For the noble Lord has told us, over and over again, that the Government of England concurred in all the steps taken by the French Government. The House will allow me to read the very words of the despatch, for, after all, this is no very small matter. I have an English trans lation, but the French original is under neath, and any hon. Gentleman who chooses may see it. The despatch is from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Foreign Minister, who states : — ' That which the Cabinet of St. Peters burg ought to desire is an act of the Porte, which testifies that it has taken into serious consideration the mission of Prince Menchikoff, and that it renders homage to the sympathies which an identity of religion inspires in the Em peror Nicholas for all Christians of the Eastern rite.' And farther on : — ' They [the French Government] sub mit it to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg with the hope that it will find that its general sense differs in nothing from the sense of the proposition presented by Prince Menchikoff.' The French words are : — ' Que son sens general ne differe en rien du sens du , proj et pr^sente par M. le Prince Menchikoff.' It then goes on :— ' And that it gives it satisfaction on all the essential points of its demands. The slight variation in the form of it will not be observed by the masses of the people, either in Russia or in Turkey. To their eyes, the step taken by the Porte [that is, in accepting it] will preserve all the sig nification which the Cabinet of St. Peters burg wishes to give it ; and His Majesty the Emperor Nicholas will appear to them always as the powerful and respected pro tector of their religious faith.' This despatch was written, recom mending la note Francaise; which is the basis of, and is in reality and substance 16 — 2 244 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. 22, the same thing with, the Vienna note; but, up to this moment, neither the Government of France nor the Govern ment of which the noble Lord is a Member has for an instant denied the justice — I do not say the extent or de gree — but the justice of the claim made on the part of the Russian Government against the Turks ; and now they turn round upon their own note and tell you that there was a different construction put upon it. Was there any constrac- tion put upon it, which was different from the recommendation here made and the argument used by the French Government ? No ; and the whole of that statement is a statement that is delusive, and if I were not in this House I would characterise it by a harsher epithet. I say now what I stated in March last, and what I have since said and written to the country, that you are making war against the Government which accepted your own terms of peace; and I state this now only for the purpose of urging upon the House and upon the Government that you are bound at least, after making war for many months, to exact no further terms from the State with which you are at war, than such as will give that security which at first you believed to be necessary ; and that if you carry on a war for vengeance — if you cany on a war for conquest — if you carry on a war for purposes of Government at home, as many wars have been carried on in past times, I say you will be guilty of a heinous crime, alike in the eyes of God and of man. One other remark perhaps the ' House will permit me to make. The noble Lord spoke very confidently to-night; and a very considerable portion of his speech — hoping, as I do, for the resto ration of peace at some time or another — was to me not very satisfactory. I think that he would only be acting a more statesmanlike part if, in his speeches, he were at least to abstain from those trifling but still irritating charges which he is constantly making against the Russian Government. I can conceive one nation going to war with another nation; but why should the noble Lord say, ' The Sovereign of that State does not allow Bibles to be circulated — he suppressed this thing here, and he put down something else there'? What did one of the noble Lord's present colleagues say of the Government of our ally? Did he not thank God that his despotism could not suppress or gag our newspaper press, and declare that the people of France were subject to the worst tyranny in Europe ? These statements from a Minister — from one who has been Prime Minister, and who, for aught I know, may be again Prime Minister — show a littleness that I did not expect from a statesman of this country, whose fate and whose interests hang on every word the noble Lord utters, and when the fate of thousands, aye, and of tens of thousands, may depend on whether the noble Lord should make one false step in the position in which he is now placed. And when terrible calamities were coming upon your army, where was this Government? One Minister was in Scotland, another at: the sea-side, and for six weeks no meeting of the Cabinet took place. I do not note when Cabinets are held — I sometimes observe that they sit for four or five hours at a time, and then I think some thing is wrong — but for sixiweeks, or two months, it is said no ¦ meeting of the Ministers was held. The noble Lord President was making a small speech on a great subject somewhere in Cumberland. At Bedford he descanted on the fate of empires, forgetting that there was nothing so likely to destroy an empire as unnecessary wars. At Bristol he was advocating a new His tory of England, which, if impartially written, I know not how the noble Lord's policy for the last few months will show to posterity. The noble Lord the Member for Tiverton undertook a more difficult task — a labour left un accomplished by Voltaire — and, when he addressed the Hampshire peasantry, I854. RUSSIA. II. 245 in one short sentence he overturned the New Testament and destroyed the foundations of the Christian religion. Now, Sir, I have only to speak on one more point. My hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding, in what he said about the condition of the Eng lish army in the Crimea, I believe ex pressed only that which all in this House feel, and which, I trust, every person in this countiy capable of think ing feels. When I look at Gentiemen on that bench, and consider all their policy has brought about within the past twelve months, I scarcely dare trust myself to speak of them, either in or out of their presence. We all know what we have lost in this House. Here, sitting near me, very often sat the Member for Frame (Colonel Boyle). I met him a short time before he went out, at Mr. Westerton's, the bookseller, near Hyde Park Corner. I asked him whether he was going out? He an swered, he was afraid he was ; not afraid in the sense of personal fear — he knew not that ; but he said, with a look and a tone I shall never forget, ' It is no light matter for a man who has a wife and five little children.' The stormy Euxine is his grave ; his wife is a widow, his children fatherless. On the other side of the House sat a Member, with whom I was not acquainted, who. has lost his life, and another of whom I knew something (Colonel Blair). Who is there that does not recollect his frank, amiable, and manly countenance ? I doubt whether there were any men on either side of the House who were more capable of fixing the goodwill and af fection of those with whom they were associated. Well, but the place that knew them shall know them no more for ever. I have specified only two ; but there are a hundred officers who have been killed in battle, or who have died of their wounds ; forty have died of dis ease ; and more than two hundred others have been wounded more or less severely. This has been a tenibly destructive war to officers. They have been, as one would have expected them to be, the first in valour as the first in place ; they have suffered more in pro portion to their numbers than the com monest soldiers in the ranks. This has spread sorrow over the whole countiy. I was in the House of Lords when the vote of thanks was moved. In the gallery were many ladies, three-fourths of whom were dressed in the deepest mourning. Is this nothing? And in every village, cottages are to be found into which sorrow has entered, and, as I believe, through the policy of the Minis try, which might have been avoided. No one supposes that the Government wished to spread the pall of sorrow over the land ; but this we had a right to expect, that they would at least show becoming gravity in discussing a subject the appalling consequences of which may come home to individuals and to the nation. I recollect when Sir Robert Peel addressed the House on a dispute which threatened hostili ties with the United States, — I recollect the gravity of his countenance, the so lemnity of his tone, his whole de meanour showing that he felt in his soul the responsibility that rested on him. I have seen this, and I have seen the present Ministry. There was the buf foonery at the Reform Club. Was that becoming a matter of this grave nature ? Has there been a solemnity of manner in the speeches heard in con nection with this war — and have Minis ters shown themselves statesmen and Christian men when speaking on a subject of this nature ? It is very easy for the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton to rise and say that I am against war under all circumstances ; and that if an enemy were to land on our shores, I should make a calculation as to whether it would be cheaper to take him in or keep him out, and that my opinion on this question is not to be considered either by Parliament or the country. I am not afraid of dis cussing the war with the noble Lord on his own principles. I understand 246 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. the Blue Books as well as he ; and, leaving out all fantastic and visionary notions about what will become of us if something is not done to destroy or to cripple Russia, I say — and I say it with as much confidence as I ever said any thing in my life — that the war cannot be justified out of these documents ; and that impartial history will teach this to posterity if we do not comprehend it now. I am not, nor did I ever pretend to be, a statesman ; and that character is so tainted and so equivocal in our day, that I am not sure that a pure and honourable ambition would aspire to it. I have not enjoyed for thirty years, like these noble Lords, the honours and emoluments of office. I have not set my sails to every passing breeze. I am a plain and simple citizen, sent here by one of the foremost constituencies of the Empire, representing feebly, per haps, but honestly, I dare aver, the opinions of very many, and the true interests of all those who have sent me here. Let it not be said that I am alone in my condemnation of this war, and of this incapable and guilty Ad ministration. And, even if I were alone, if mine were a solitary voice, raised amid the din of arms and the clamours of a venal press, I should have the con solation I have to-night — and which I trust will be mine to the last moment of my existence — the priceless consola tion that no word of mine has tended to promote the squandering of my country's treasure or the spilling of one single drop of my country's blood. -:~^<£c~:- RUSSIA. m. NEGOTIATIONS AT VIENNA. HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 23, 1855. From Hansard. [On February 2 2 Lord Palmerston announced in the House of Commons that Mr. Glad stone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Sidney Herbert, the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Cardwell, the President of the Board of Trade, and Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had resigned the offices which they had accepted a fortnight before. The ground of this secession was the impression entertained by the above- named personages that the Committee of Inquiry moved for by Mr. Roebuck was equivalent to a vote of censure on them, as they had formed part of the Government of Lord Aberdeen, whose conduct of the Russian war was impugned by the appoint ment of the Committee. The places vacated by these secessions were filled up on February 28.] I am one of those forming the majority of the House, I suspect, who are dis posed to look upon our present position as one of more than ordinary gravity. I am one, also, of those, not probably constituting so great a majority of the House, who regret extremely the cir cumstances which have obliged the right hon. Gentlemen who are now upon this bench to secede from the Government of the noble Lord the Member for Tiver ton. I do not take upon me for a moment to condemn them ; because I think, if there be anything in which a man must judge for himself, it is whether he should take office if it be offered to him, whether he should secede from office, whether he should serve under a particular leader, or engage in the ser vice of the Crown, or retain office in a particular emergency. In such cases I think that the decision must be left to his own conscience and his own judg ment ; and I should be the last person to condemn any one for the decision to which he might come. I think, how ever, that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman is one which the House cannot have listened to without being convinced that he and his retiring Col leagues have been moved to the course which they have taken by a deliberate judgment upon this question, which, whether it be right or wrong, is fully explained, and is honest to the House and to the country. Now, Sir, I said that I regretted their secession, because I am one of those who do not wish to see the Government of the noble Lord the Member for 248 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 23, Tiverton overthrown. The House knows well, and nobody knows better than the noble Lord, that I have never been one of his ardent and enthusiastic supporters. I have often disapproved of his policy both at home and abroad; but I hope that I do not bear to him, as I can honestly say that I do not bear to any man in this House — for from all I have received unnumbered courtesies — any feeling that takes even the tinge of personal ani mosity ; and even if I did, at a moment so grave as this, no feeling of a personal character whatever should prevent me from doing that which I think now, of all times, we are called upon to do — that which we honestly and conscientiously believe to be for the permanent interests of the country. We are in this position, that for a month past, at least, there has been a chaos in the regions of the Ad ministration. Nothing can be more embarrassing — I had almost saidnothing can be more humiliating — than the posi tion which we offer to the country ; and I am afraid that the knowledge of our position is not confined to the limits of these islands. It will be admitted that we want a Government ; that if the country is to be saved from the breakers which now surround it, there must be a Govern ment ; and it devolves upon the House of Commons to rise to the gravity of the occasion, and to support any man who. is conscious of his responsibility, and who is honestly offering and en deavouring to deliver the country from the embarrassment in which we now find it. We are at war, and I shall not say one single sentence with regard to the policy of the war or its origin, and I know not that I shall say a single sentence with regard to the conduct of it ; but the fact is that we are at war with the greatest military Power, pro bably, of the world, and that we are carrying on our operations at a distance of 3,000 miles from home, and in the neighbourhood of the strongest fortifi cations of that great military Empire. I will not stop to criticise — though it really myites me — the fact that some who have told us that we were in danger from the aggressions of that Empire, at the same time told us that that Empire was powerless for aggression, and also that it was impregnable to attack. By some means, however, the public have been alarmed as if that aggressive power were unbounded, and they have been induced to undertake an expedition, as if the invasion of an impregnable country were a matter of holiday-making rather than of war. But we are now in a peculiar position with regard to that war ; for, if I am not mistaken — and I think I gathered as much from the language of the right hon. Gentleman — at this very moment terms have been agreed upon — agreed upon by the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen ; consented to by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton when he was in that Cabinet ; and ratified and confirmed by him upon the formation of his own Government — and that those terms are now specifically known and understood ; and that they have been offered to the Government with which this countiy is at war, and in conjunction with France and Austria — one, certainly, and the other supposed to be — an ally of this countiy. Now, those terms consist of four propositions, which I shall neither describe nor discuss, because they are known to the House ; but three of them are not matters of dispute; and with regard to the other, I think that the noble Lord the Member for the City of of London stated, upon a recent occasion, that it was involved in this proposition, — that the preponderant power of Russia in the Black Sea should cease, and that Russia had accepted it with that inter pretation. Therefore, whatever differ ence arises is merely as to the mode in which that ' preponderant power ' shall be understood or made to cease. Now, there are some Gentiemen not far from me — there are men who write in the public press — there are thousands of persons in the United Kingdom at this moment — and I leam with astonishment and dismay that there are persons even in that grave assembly which we are not i855- RUSSIA. III. 249 allowed to specify by a name in this House — who have entertained dreams — impracticable theories — expectations of vast European and Asiatic changes, of revived nationalities, and of a new map of Europe, if not of the world, as a re sult or an object of this war. And it is from those Gentlemen that we hear con tinually, addressed to the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, language which I cannot well understand. They call upon him to act, to carry on the war with vigour, and to prosecute enter prises which neither his Government nor any other Government has ever seriously entertained; but I would appeal to those Gentlemen whether it does not become us — regarding the true interests and the true honour of the country — if our Government haveoffered terms of peace to. Russia, not to draw back from those terms, not to cause any unnecessary delay, not to, adopt any subterfuge to prevent those terms being accepted, not to attempt shuffles of any kind, not to endeavour to insist upon harder terms, and thus make the ap proach of peace even still more distant than it is at present ? Whatever may be said about the honour of the country in any other re lation involved in this affair, this, at least, I expect every man who hears me to admit — that if terms of peace have been offered they have been offered in good faith, and shall be in honour and good faith adhered to ; so that if, un fortunately for Europe and humanity, there should be any failure at Vienna, no man should point to the English Government and to the authorities and rulers of this Christian country, and say that we have prolonged the war and the infinite calamities of which it is the cause. I have said that I was anxious that the Government of the noble Lord should not be overthrown. Will the. House allow me to say why I am so ? The noble Lord at the head of the Government has long been a great authority with many persons in this countiy upon foreign policy. His late coUeague, and present envoy to Vienna, has long been a great authority with a large portion of the people of this country upon almost all political ques tions. With the exception of that un happy selection of an ambassador at Constantinople, I hold that there are no men in this country more traly re sponsible for our present position in this war than the noble Lord who now fills the highest office in the State and the noble Lord who is now, I trust, rapidly approaching the scene of his labours in Vienna. I do not say this now to throw blame upon those noble Lords, because their policy, which I hold to be wrong, they, without doubt, as firmly believe to be right ; but I am only stating facts. It has been their policy that they have entered into war for certain objects, and I am sure that neither the noble Lord at the head of the Government nor his late colleague the noble Lord the Member for London will shrink from the responsibility which attaches to them. Well, Sir, now we have those noble Lords in a position which is, in my humble opinion, favour able to the termination of the troubles which exist. I think that the noble Lord at the head of the Government himself would have more influence in stilling whatever may exist of clamour in this countiy than any other Member of this House. I think, also, that the noble Lord the Member for London would not have undertaken the mission to Vienna if he had not entertained some strong belief that, by so doing, he might bring the war to an end. No body gains reputation by a failure in negotiation, and as that noble Lord is well acquainted with the whole question from the beginning to end, I enter tain a hope — I will not say a sanguine hope — that the result of that mission to Vienna will be to bring about a peace, to extricate this countiy from some of those difficulties inseparable from a state of war. There is one subject upon which I should like to put a question to the noble Lord at the head of the Govern ment. I shall not say one word here 250 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. FEB. 23, about the state of the army in the Crimea, or one word about its numbers or its condition. Every Member of this House, every inhabitant of this country, has been sufficiently harrowed with de tails regarding it. To my solemn be lief, thousands — nay, scores of thousands of persons — have retired to rest, night after night, whose slumbers have been disturbed or whose dreams have been based upon the sufferings and agonies of our soldiers in the Crimea. I should like to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government — although I am not sure if he will feel that he can or ought to answer the question — whether the noble Lord the Member for London has power, after discussions have com menced, and as soon as there shall be established good grounds for believing that the negotiations for peace will prove successful, to enter into any armistice ? ['No! no!'] I know not, Sir, who it is that says ' No, no,' but I should like to see any man get up and say that the destruc tion of 200,000 human lives lost on all sides during the course of this unhappy conflict is not a sufficient sacrifice. You are not pretending to conquer territory — you are not pretending to hold forti fied or unfortified towns; you have offered terms of peace which, as I understand them, I do not say are not moderate ; and breathes there a man in this House or in this countiy whose appetite for blood is so insatiable that, even when terms of peace have been offered and accepted, he pines for that assault in which of Russian, Turk, French, and English, as sure as one man dies, 20,000 corpses will strew the streets of Sebastopol ? I say I should like to ask the noble Lord — and I am sure that he will feel, and that this House will feel, that I am speaking in no unfriendly manner towards the Go vernment of which he is at the head — I should like to know, and I venture to hope that it is so, if the noble Lord the Member for London has power, at the earliest stage of these proceedings at Vienna, at which it can properly be ' done — and I should think that it might properly be done at a very early stage — to adopt a course by which all further waste of human life may be put an end to, and further animosity between three great nations be, as far as possible, prevented ? I appeal to the noble Lord at the head of the Government and to this House; I am not now complaining of the war — I am not now complaining of the terms of peace, nor, indeed, of anything that has been done-Tl5ut I wish to suggest to this House what, I believe, thousands and tens of thousands of the most educated and of the most Christian portion of the people of this country are feeling upon this subject, although, indeed, in the midst of a certain clamour in the countiy, they do not give public expression to their feelings. Your country is not in an advantageous state at this moment; from one end of the kingdom to the other there is a general collapse of in dustry. Those Members of this House not intimately acquainted with the trade and commerce of the country do not fully comprehend our position as to the diminution of employment and the lessening of wages. An increase in the cost of living is finding its way to the homes and hearts of a vast number of the labouring population. At the same time there is growing up — and, notwithstanding what some hon. Members of this House may think of me, no man regrets it more than I do — a bitter and angry feeling against that class which has for a long period con ducted the public affairs of this country. I like political changes when such changes are made -as the result, not of passion, but of deliberation and reason. Changes so made are safe, but changes made under the influence of violent exaggeration, or of the violent passions of public meetings, are not changes usually approved by this House or advantageous to the country. I can not but ndtice, in speaking to Gentle men who sit on either side of this House, or in speaking to any one I iS55- W~ RUSSIA. III. meet between this House and any of those localities we frequent when this House is up — I cannot, I say, but notice that an uneasy feeling exists as to the news which may arrive by the very next mail from the East. I do not suppose that your troops are to be beaten in actual conflict with the foe, or that they will be driven into the sea ; but I am certain that many homes in England in which there now' exists a fond hope that the distant one may return — many such homes may be rendered desolate when the next mail' I shall amve.y*The Angel of Death has | been abroad throughout the land; you ;' may almost hear the beating of his ' wings. There is no one, as when the first-bom were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side- posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on ; he takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and the lowly, and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn I tell the noble Lord, that- if he be ready honestly and frankly to endea vour, by the negotiations about to be opened at Vienna, to put an end to this war, no word of mine, no vote of mine, will be given to shake his power for one single moment, or to change his posi tion in this House. I am sure that the noble Lord is not inaccessible to ap peals made to him from honest motives and with no unfriendly feeling. The noble Lord has been for more than forty years a Member of this House. Before I was born, he sat upon the Treasury bench, and he has spent his life in the service of his country. He is no longer young, and his life has extended almost to the term allotted to man. I would ask, I would entreat the noble Lord to take a course which, when he looks back upon his whole political career — whatever he may therein find to be pleased with, what ever to regret — cannot but be a source of gratification to him. By adopting that course he would have the satisfac tion of reflecting that, having obtained the object of his laudable ambition — having become the foremost subject of the Crown, the director of, it may be, the destinies of his country, and the presiding genius in her councils — he had achieved a still higher and nobler ambition : that he had returned the sword to the scabbard — that at his word torrents of blood had ceased to flow — that he had restored tranquillity to Europe, and saved this countiy from the indescribable calamities of war. ¦ — of his conscience. There is no portion — I can assure this meeting there is not one of the propositions for Reform that have been submitted to the public — there is no other portion that is received with such unanimity, such enthusiasm of resolution, through out all the meetings in England, as the proposition that the Ballot shall form a portion of the coming Reform. We come now to that question which, after all, is more difficult than any to which I have referred, and much more difficult of obtaining or carrying through Parliament — viz. the determination as to the mode in which Members shall in future be allotted to electors and con stituencies. I presume that any Re form Bill will draw some line, and below that line will disfranchise a num ber of boroughs, assuming their popu lation to be too small, and the number of electors too limited, aijd the interests too circumscribed, to justify them in returning a Member to Parliament, and the more of these boroughs that are thus cut off, the larger number of mem bers or seats will Parliament have to distribute among other constituencies. Now, what shad be done with such a borough as Glasgow ? Are you con tent to go on with your brethren in Edinburgh, with a population approach ing to half a million — will you go on contentedly returning only four Mem bers to the House of Commons to represent your vast and annually in creasing interests and population, whilst a population no greater than yours shall return, as the case may be, fifty, eighty, or a hundred Members else where? You are not die lovers of freedom I take you to be — you do not understand the question as well as I am satisfied you do— you have not resolved 1858. REFORM. III. 3" to brace yourselves up for this great contest, as I hope this night you will — if you are content to go on in the same condition of things under which you have been for some time past. I am not about to state what I think is the limit that ought to be taken. Lord John Russell would not continue repre sentation to boroughs with a population under 5000. Others have proposed that in the case of boroughs with a population under 10,000 they should be merged in the counties, and the electors in boroughs become electors in counties, — which would be a vast improvement to the county representation. I will leave this point, for I believe that with regard to my Bill it is not a settled question, and I do not know the inten tions of the Government or of anybody else who may take a prominent part in introducing any measure to the House of Commons and the country. Now, bear in mind, it is possible to make great changes in the representa tion without the smallest improvement. At a dinner you may go from one bad dish to another ; you may go from one unpleasant street to another, from one unprofitable business to another; you may make a very important change in respect to the franchise without any sensible relief; and it is precisely thus we must warn each other about these points of Reform, because it is quite possible that the Government, hampered by their own prejudices and dispositions, hampered by their followers, and con scious that there are some of their opponents who do not want much Re form ; it is quite possible that Govern ment may attempt a measure which, while seeming to reform, will leave the state of the representation quite as unsatisfactory as at present. Thus, I maintain, there can be no Reform ex cept on such, or on something like the basis which I have endeavoured to lay down ; and I state this the more par ticularly because I am anxious that all my countrymen who have not investi gated the question shall, when , any measure is really before them, be in a condition to form an intelligent opinion of it. At present the great body of the working classes of the country are ex cluded, and I have shown you, from the mode in which electors are crippled and managed, that the great body of the middle classes, if not excluded, are so arranged that they may be said to be almost altogether defrauded. I want to know why the working classes and the middle classes — and I wish we had no such terms, or that we had some better terms, but I mean by them all those persons who compose the vast population of the country below the great privileged and titled classes of society — I want to know why they should not all unite fairly in behalf of the great measure of political Reform to which we are looking forward ? De pend upon it a real measure of Reform is as much wanted for the security and for the welfare of the middle classes of society as it is for the operative classes. There is a great attempt constantly made to frighten the middle classes. They are told that working-men will not be inclined to listen to the advice of those above them in condition, cir cumstances, and education. Some of you recollect forty years ago, when such a thing as a public political meeting could not be held in Scotland. The ruling classes then held that political meetings were dangerous, that they were absolutely treasonable, that public tranquillity and the security of Govern ment were impossible if Englishmen and Scotchmen were permitted to meet and discuss public affairs. But Reform was carried, and after many years' ex perience of.it, we find that public tran quillity is more firmly established now than at asiy former period of the history of this country. Twenty-seven years ago the Reform Bill passed. What said the great peers then, some of whom appear to have been recently startled from their somnolent security? What did they say? They said the King's Government could not be carried on, and that from the time when that moderate but great measure of Reform 3" SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 21, was passed there would be an end of th^ greatness and glory of this powerful nation. But what has been the result ? Every one of these predictions has been utterly falsified. Twelve or fourteen years ago, when I was here last, what did they tell us of that simple measure of the repeal of the Corn-laws? One great Peer told us that he should leave the countiy; and one of the labourers who was at the meeting asked, would his lordship take his land along with him? And we are told that not agri culture alone, but manufactures, and all the commerce of the country would be crippled if not destroyed, and that your splendid river, bearing the leviathans of noble architecture constructed on its banks, would return to its former state of a small and pleasant stream, — and, I suppose, that men could catch trout and salmon from the bridge that crossed it. This kind of argument is what Jeremy Bentham has happily described as the hobgoblin argument, a great trick now adays to. frighten people, lest they should do themselves some good. Yet to the middle classes — to you, who twenty-seven years ago were pro nounced utterly unworthy of the fran chise, to you they now say, ' You are the bulwark of our constitution.' You can live in a 10/. house, but if you go below to 9/., if you go to 8/., if you go to 7/., the case is considered bad, but it becomes more desperate at 61. and 5/., and the rating franchise is positively revolutionary. I confess I do not believe this. The number of electors under this rating franchise has been very much exaggerated by those who have not examined it. It was stated at a meeting in Edinburgh the other night, by a gentleman whose authority will not be disputed, that the franchise that I propose would raise the number of electors in Edinburgh from 8,000 to nearly i7,qoo. I presume that in your city you have a greater population than Edinburgh has; but whatever it be, I am satisfied that if we are to take any step, if we are ever to change our re presentation, I say to every man of the middle classes, to every man who wishes for the stability of institutions, — I say, let us treat the great body of the popu lation with a magnanimous generosity ; that our fellow-countrymen of twenty years hence may make an unanimous acknowledgment that generosity in the year 1859 was the path of true states manship and of wisdom. But I observe in some newspaper, I am not sure whether it was one in your city, — it is said that I have failed to show to the working classes how giving them a vote could be of the smallest advantage to them. I believe that it would be of one advantage to them in the way of raising their self-respect. I have seen thousands of men who have no votes, at the nomination of candi dates, attending polling-booths, with looks of great anxiety, and often with looks of great dejection. I believe that if the major part of those men were enfranchised, the effect upon their minds and morals and general condition would be obvious and signal. The great secret of raising any man who has been brought up to what may be called the inferior occupations of life, is to find out some thing to increase his self-respect. If a man becomes possessed with that feeling — if a man sees any way among his fellow-workmen, and in your numerous societies, benevolent or otherwise, by which he can make himself of use — you will at once see the change in the cha racter of the man, and that what was before either stupid or low in his nature seems to be removed or diminished, and you will find that the man has become wiser, and nobler, and happier. I be lieve that when you admit the general body of our artisans upon the roll of electors, when they can not only attend nominations and hold up their hands and cheer for the successful or popular candidate, but can also go one by one to the polling-booth, and register their votes for the man who shall represent the great interests of Glasgow; my honest, conscientious opinion is, that you will do as much to raise their self- respect, to give them at least the rudi- i858. REFORM. III. 313 ments and elements of the higher class of citizenship, as you can do by all the other means that you now have in operation with a view of improving the condition of the working classes. But there are other results that will come to this country in case you ever obtain a fair representation of the people. I have been in Scotland a good deal for the last three or four years, and often before then. I have found, in travelling over your countiy, that your land is not the land of the people of Scotland, but that it is in a position — in a manner exclusive — which is not found to be the case with regard to any other property. It is found in the possession — in comparison to the whole body of the people — of a small handful of proprie tors. Let no man say that I am about to assail any landed proprietors in Scot land. I have received many courtesies from them, and not a few courtesies from the most eminent and distinguished among them ; I speak only of the system which arises from a Legislature that is diametrically opposed to all the great principles of political economy, which we and you struggled for so many years to place on our statute books in the shape of a wiser legislation in matters of trade. Land is the basis of your indus try. Is there any reason why land should not be as free as machinery, or ships, or household furniture, or cattle, or the goods and manufactures in your ware houses ? If freedom be the law of right and of wisdom with respect to all these kinds of property, how should the re verse of freedom be any other than the law of mischief and injury when applied to land ? You may travel — I was going to say, ' from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof — on some single estate in Scotland, north or south, east or west — wherever you go you ask whose land you are on, and you are told that it belongs to some marquis or some duke. They are happy mortals, it will be said, who possess this great territory ; and so, probably, they would be, if it were possible for any man, how ever well disposed, to adequately answer the responsibilities which such posses sions lay upon him. You find on these vast estates very few tenants, and gene rally very few of an agricultural popu lation at all. There is little social freedom, there is little industrial free dom, and there is still less political freedom in districts such as those which I am describing. I do not know very well how men can breathe freely when they find themselves continually on a soil not one morsel of which they can call their own, or can ever hope to call their own, until they take their last long sleep in that portion of it which shall finally be allotted to them. I am no advocate for a law to force the division of land. I do not want any landlord to be compelled to have a greater or smaller number of tenants ; but I say that the system of legislation in regard to primogeniture, and on en tails and settlements, which is intended to keep vast estates in one hand through successive generations, to prevent that economical disposition and change of property which is found so advantageous in every other kind of property — I say this state of things is full of the most pernicious consequences, not only to the agricultural classes, but to all other classes of our countrymen, since all are affected by it. I recollect one evening seeing a farmer ride away from an hotel in the Highlands, and I asked his name. I was told that he was a fanner in some neighbouring glen, where he had a prodigious farm ; and my inform ant said that there were once fourteen good farms on what is now one farm, and that each of the fourteen families always managed to send at least one of its sons to obtain a first-class University education. Now, I do not want any law to strip that one farmer of his farm ; but the law which interferes with the free course of transactions in land, which multiplies and keeps up these vast estates, which gives to one man power over a whole territory, whereby he has at his disposal tenant and labourer alike, is not such a law as is consistent with that freedom to which 3i4 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. the people of England and Scotland are entitled. Your agricultural labouring population have no chance of rising in the world. They can come to Glasgow, as scores of thousands of men have come from the Highlands and from Ireland, or, forced by the unfavourable circumstances in which they find them selves, they may become exiles from their native country, and form colonies in the far Pacific, or beyond the wide Atlantic. But I think we are bound as free men — and we townsmen are espe cially bound, for we only have the power to take the initiative in this great question — we are bound, so far as we are able, by our representatives in Par liament (and I have no doubt it will be one of the consequences of a real Reform Bill), to apply those great principles of political economy, which are the gospel and the charter of industry, as fully to property in land as we have already applied them to property engaged in trade. There is another point to which I must call your attention in answer to the question, ' What is the good which the working classes, or any other class, can hope for from a wide extension of the franchise ? ' Now there is one great question over which the public has no great hold, and that is the question-of the public expenditure. The present Chan cellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli, an eminent member of the House of Commons, a leading member of the Government, and a man of genius, whose present position, I must say, is a proclamation to the world of the incom petency of the Conservative aristocracy and country gentlemen of the United Kingdom ; and, what is still more to be remarked, is an evidence of the humility which adorns their character in thus admitting it,— Mr. Disraeli said, on more than one recent occasion, that expenditure depended on policy — by which he meant that our public expen diture depended on our foreign policy. Now, Our past foreign policy has been of a very questionable character. It has entailed upon us the permanent pay ment, from which there is no honour able escape, of a sum of 28,000,000/. per annum ; and our present foreign policy, and matters connected with it, involve us in the present payment of 22,000,000/. per annum for our great military and naval preparations and expenses. I am not about for a mo ment to discuss the question, whether our foreign policy has been, or is now, good, bad, or indifferent, because that does not very much affect the question to which I wish to call your attention. Iii our home affairs we have a very open system of government. If the Home Office is about to do anything, some body hears of it, and somebody approves of it, or somebody objects to it. In all matters connected with our personal freedom, with the administration of justice, in all things which may be called internal, we have the freest opportunity of obtaining information, expressing our opinion, and enforcing our views on the Government. But when you come to our foreign policy, you are no longer Englishmen; you are no longer free ; you are recom mended not to inquire. If you do, you are told you cannot understand it ; you are snubbed, you are hustled aside. We are told that the matter is too deep for common understandings like ours — that there is great mystery about it. We have what is called diplomacy. We have a great many lords engaged in what they call diplomacy. We have a lord in Paris, we have another in Madrid, another in Berlin, another (at least we had till very lately) in Vienna, and another lord in Constantinople; and we have another at Washington ; in fact, almost all over the world ; par ticularly where the society is most pleasant, and the climate most agree able, there is almost certain to be an English nobleman to represent the English Foreign Office, but you never know what he is doing. You have three or four columns every other day in most of the leading London papers— not a little of which is copied into the provincial journals — all about our REFORM. III. •315 foreign affairs, and yet, notwithstanding this, you are not a bit better acquainted with the matter when you read it, if you do read it at all, than you were before. Yet you have the great fact, that you have paid 28,000,000/. a-year for more than forty years, and, since the year 1815, more tiian 1,000,000,000/. out of the industry of the population. And out of all this comes the supposed necessity of armaments twice as large as were necessary twenty-five years ago ; and yet you have no control over, and know nothing of the matter. There is not a population equal to this in Russia, Austria, or France, that knows less of the foreign affairs of any of those countries than this meeting probably knows of the foreign affairs of England. Lately, our Minister for Foreign Affairs was candid enough to tell you that Government drifted into war, and you know what is meant when a ship drifts. And other Foreign Ministers have drifted us into a great many wars; and I expect, if some change be not made with regard to this question, that they will either find it convenient, or that they cannot avoid it, from some cause or other, to allow us to drift into a war at some future period. I will not talk of what war is— we have had a specimen of it. Be it necessary or be it unnecessary — be the quarrel just or be it unjust — be it for the rights of the nation or to gratify the stupidity of a monarch or the intrigues of a minister ¦ — war, nevertheless, is one of the greatest calamities that can afflict any kingdom or the human race ; and you, the people, are ignorant of the steps by which you are drawn into war. A Scotch Duke — and, by the way, rather a sprightly Duke he is too — lately took me to task for something that I had said. I had called in question the wisdom of the policy which compels this vast expenditure abroad, while the people of Ireland were working at one shilling a day for wages, and the people of your own Highlands were living upon three meals of oatmeal a day ! What was the triumphant refutation of my argu ment? This only, that oatmeal was a most wholesome article of diet. If I had said that the Duke's dogs, at Inverary Castle, had been fed upon oatmeal three times a day, the answer would have been perfectly satisfactory. But I am told further by these autho rities, though the country does occa sionally become involved in war, that the people desire it, that they are as fond of it as their rulers. Well, if the Peers did sorrow for the late war, they never told their grief. Are the people, are the nation, to have the blame of those calamities thrown upon them when they do 'occur ? Who form your Cabinet? Not the merchants of Glas gow — not the shopkeepers nor the artisans — no, but the members of the peerage of the United Kingdom. Half of your Cabinets are formed from the House of Lords, and the other half from the House of Commons are so directly connected with the peerage that they may be regarded as belonging to that class. Do not let the conduct of public affairs remain with a few leading fami lies, who enjoy all the emoluments and all the power; and when such an one as myself steps forward to point out the blunders they commit, and the crimes they are guilty of, if I tell diem of the sufferings which my countrymen have endured, sufferings, the full measure of which never will be known or revealed to us, and which will be known only in eternity, do not let us have it said that the people are in favour of wars, when they have in reality so little to do with them. It is a curious thing to observe the evils which nations live under, and the submissive spirit with which they yield to them. I have often compared, in my own mind, the people of England with the people of ancient Egypt, and the Foreign Office of this country with the temples of the Egyptians. We are told by those who pass up and down the Nile, that on its banks are grand temples with stately statues and massive and lofty columns — statues each one of which would have appeared almost to have 3i6 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. exhausted a quarry in its production. You have, further, vast chambers, and gloomy passages ; and some innermost recess, some holy of holies, in which, when you arrive at it, you find some loathsome reptile which a nation rever enced and revered, and bowed itself down to worship. In our Foreign Office we have no massive columns ; we have no statues ; but we have a mystery as profound ; and in the inner most recesses of it we find some miser able intrigue, in defence of which your fleets are traversing every ocean, your armies are perishing in every clime, and the precious blood of our country's chil dren is. squandered as though it had no price. I hope that an improved repre sentation will change aU this ; that the great portion of our expenditure which is incurred in carrying out the secret and irresponsible doings of our Foreign Office will be placed directly under the free control of a Parliament elected by the great body of the people of the United Kingdom. And then, and not till then, will your industry be secured from that gigantic taxation to which it has been subjected during the last hundred and fifty years. There is much in this countiy, not withstanding, of which we may be proud. We can write freely, we can meet as we are met now, and we can speak freely of our political wishes and our grievances. The ruling classes, with a wise sagacity, have yielded these points without further struggle ; but we are so delighted with our personal freedom, we are so pleased that we can move about without passports, and speak, write, and act as freely as a free man requires to do, we are so delighted with all this, that we are unconscious of the fact that our rulers extract from our industry a far larger amount than any other Go vernment does, or ever did, from an equal number of people. Dr. Living stone, the African traveller, if I am not mistaken, is a native of this neighbour hood, and you no doubt identify his reputation in some degree with your own. He gives, in his interesting and charming book, many anecdotes of the various creatures which he saw and heard of during his. travels. He de scribes in one place, I remember, a bird, which he calls a dull, stupid bird, a kind of pelican, which occupies itself with its own affairs on the river side. This pelican catches fish, and when it has secured them it puts them into a pouch or purse under its bill, instead of the ordinaiy accommodation which anglers have in Scotland for their prizes. Dr. Livingstone tells of another bird which is neither dull nor stupid, which he calls the fish-hawk. This hawk hovers over the pelican, and waiting patiently until the latter has secured the fish, he comes down upon him with a swoop and takes the fish from the purse, leaving the pelican delighted that the hawk has not taken him bodily away, and setting to work at once to catch another fish. I ask of you whether you can apply this anecdote to your own case? You are told that your Government is a Government which allows you to meet, and that it lets every man say anything short of absolute treason, at least in times of tranquillity; it permits your leading-article writers to denounce, at will, every member of the Government ; and like the pelican, you are so de lighted that you are not absolutely eaten up by it, that you allow it to ex tract from your pockets an incalculable amount of your industry, and you go to work just as the pelican does, until this great Government fish-hawk comes down again upon you. What I want is, that all the people should examine the ques tion thoroughly for themselves. Rely upon it, your present and future wel fare as a nation are bound up with it. Many persons suppose that because some people pay but litde in the shape of taxation, that it matters nothing to them what taxes the Government imposes upon, the nation. Every man who drinks tea, or consumes any exciseable articles, pays taxes; but apart from this view of the question, I would have you to understand that everything which the i858. REFORM. III. -V- 317 Government expends, supposing it was all to come from the employers' pocket, would be a diminution of that great fund of capital out of which wages were paid. Every man, therefore, whether he pays taxes or not — more so, of course, if he does — every man, if he is not mainly living upon the taxes, has a most direct interest in establishing that representation of the people that will give die nation a firm control over the expenditure of its money. I have devoted many years of my life, I have spent much labour in advocating a greater freedom of the soil. I believe that it would work better and prove more profitable to the landed proprietors themselves. I think that free land, greater economy in the public expen diture, with the growing intelligence which we see all around us, and the im provement which is taking place in the more temperate habits of the people, all these things together fill me with the hope that whatever we have in the annals of the past of which we can boast, there is still a brighter future in store for this country. I come amongst you not to stir up animosity between class and class; that is the charge brought against me by men who wish that one class may permanently rule over every other class. I come amongst you that we may deliberate on those great questions on which our success and our prosperity depend. You know, at least if you do not know it I will tell you, that I am no frequenter of Courts. I have never sought for office or the emoluments of place. I have no craving for popularity. I think I have little of that which may be called the lust for fame. I am a citizen of a free country. I love my country, I love its freedom ; but I believe that freedom can only be extended and retained by a fair and honest representation of the people ; and it is because I believe this, that I am here to-night to ask you, through the power of your intelligence and your numbers, to step into the position which now opens up before you. REFORM. IV. LORD DERBY'S BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 24, 1859. From Hansard. [The Bill proposed by Lord Derby's Government in 1859 introduced certain 'fancy franchises' in boroughs, giving a vote to persons having 10Z. per annum in the Public Funds, Bank Stock, or India Stock, or 60/. in a Savings Bank ; and to recipients of pensions in the Naval, Military, and Civil Services, amounting to 20/. a-year. Dwellers in a portion 6f a house whose aggregate rent was 20/. a-year could have a vote. The suffrage was also to be given to graduates of the Universities, ministers of religion, members of the legal and medical professions, and to certain school masters. The Government recommended an identity of franchise in counties and boroughs, and therefore proposed to reduce the occupation franchise in counties to 10/. The Bill proposed the use of voting-papers, and the disfranchisement of such freeholders in towns as voted for counties. The Government Bill was defeated on April 1 by a majority of 39 (291 votes for the second reading, 330 against), and a dissolution followed.] In the observations which I am anxious to address to the House I shall endeavour to keep myself strictly to the question before it. I shall, not attempt any answer to some, perhaps well- intended, but rather feeble, assaults which have been made upon me during this debate, and I shall not attempt any explanation in answer to what was said by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General the other night when he spoke of an alliance between the noble Lord (J. Russell) and myself. That which is purely imaginary is not easy to explain. The House I believe will give me credit when I say that if I am found acting with the noble Lord it is because I think the course he is taking is advantageous to the country, and I hope if I have hereafter occasion to differ from him they will give me credit also, and will presume that I differ from him only because my con victions lead me to do so. There are two questions before us — the Bill of the Government and the resolution of the noble Lord, and in addition to these the great question of Parliamentary Reform, which has been more or less discussed by eveiy Member who has addressed the House. With regard to the Bill there is a singular unanimity of feeling. With the excep tion of Gentlemen on the Treasury MARCH 24, 1859. REFORM. IV. 3'9 bench, who may be considered in the light of professional witnesses, I believe there is no single Member who has spoken who has not expressed strong repugnance to some main point or prin ciple of the measure. A remarkable speech has been delivered by a right hon. Gentleman on this side of the House. He denounced the Bill as much as if he had been the greatest opponent of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but he was vehemently cheered by the other side of the House throughout almost the whole of that speech. Seeing that he turned the measure inside out, it was rather remarkable that his speech should be so relished by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and considering some of the observations which he made, the right hon. Gentleman certainly suggested a course the most extraordinary. He denounced the Bill as treason, not to the Crown, but to the people, and he proposed to inflict upon it something like the barbarous punishment with which our law, I believe, still visits those who are guilty of this great crime ; and yet, after calling on the House to go with him in taking out the heart of the measure, and, for aught I know, in disembowelling it, he comforted him self with the belief that the Government would accept and assist in carrying the Bill. He appeared to forget that the Government had parted with two eminent Colleagues on the very points of difference which he was discussing. He seemed to forget that if the Chan cellor of the Exchequer adopted this proposal he would lay himself open to the unfortunate suspicion that a sug gestion, to which he would not consent at the instance of two of his late dis tinguished Colleagues, he would accept rather than have a vote of this House against the Government with the conse quences which are likely to follow. I certainly was astonished that a man so acute as the right hon. Gentleman, after having spoken in such glowing lan guage, and with an eloquence rarely heard in this House, of the priceless honour of our public men, should suggest such a course to the Govern ment. I shall not follow the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken on the details of the Bill to the extent to which he has entered upon them. I shall confine myself to the two principles which, after all, are at this stage of the Bill only before us, being brought spe cifically under discussion by the reso lution proposed as an amendment by the noble Lord. I should like to ask the House — because I think there is some disposition to evade this question — what is it that people understand by a measure of Parliamentary Reform ? I mean people out of doors, of whom hon. Gentlemen are likely to hear a good deal before this matter is settled. They understand it should mean two things — first, an extension of the fran chise to considerable classes, not now enfranchised; and, at the same time, that it should give to the countiy larger and freer and more independent con stituencies. Now, I want to ask how this Bill meets such a demand, because if it does not it is no Reform Bill, the Government had no right to propose it in answer to that demand, and the House of Commons will fail in its duty if it gives any countenance to such a measure, or passes it into a law. In the counties at this moment, con fining myself to England and Wales, to which alone this Bill refers, there are, in round numbers, 500,000 electors, 400,000 of whom are freeholders and 100,000 occupying tenants above the value of 50/. Now, is there any doubt upon this point — that if any gentleman were asked to put his finger upon that description of elector in the counties which is most independent, he would say the freeholder; if upon the least independent, he would say of necessity the 50/. occupier ? Without saying anything against tenant-farmers or the owners of farms themselves, I think this is a description which the House will admit to be fair. Well, the Bill pro poses first of all to get rid from the counties of one-fourth, 100,000, of the 320 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 24, most independent class, the freeholders. I am not now speaking of disfranchising them, but of getting rid of them from the counties, and mixing them up with another class of electors. Everybody will see at a glance that if 100,000 of the most independent class of electors are taken from the counties, the less independent class must necessarily be made more powerful. The Bill makes, to my mind, another proposal of a most insidious character. The boundaries of boroughs are to be altered in a very remarkable fashion. The framers of the Bill seem to imagine that it is necessary for some object of theirs to include within the boundaries of boroughs every individual whom by any pretence they can lay hold of and separate from the county, if they suspect him to be infected with the prevalent opinions of the towns. By this means, of course, they would after the passing of their Bill diminish still more what ever there may be of the independent element in the county constituencies. But now observe the cunning — will right hon. Gentlemen forgive me the expression ? — perhaps it was a mistake, like the disfranchisement of 50,000 men — observe the mistake, then, involved in the plan which is to be referred to our intelligent and impartial friend Mr. Darby. I understood that Mr. Darby, the head of the Enclosure Com mission, is to appoint a Commission for this object. The question, then, will be referred to him or to somebody. I will admit, if you like, that the Com mission is as good as I or anybody in this House could wish. This Commis sion is not to examine the case of all bo roughs. It is merely intended, as I un derstand it, to shut up within the borough boundaries all the suburbs of our cities and towns, and all immediately con tiguous villages. But the Commissioners have no charge to go to another de scription of borough, and shut up the country parishes within the boundaries of counties. Now, surely, if it was a fair thing to go to any large town and say, 'AH these streets and villages shall be comprised within the borough ; none of these 10/. occupiers shall vote for the county,' it would be a fair thing to go to agricultural boroughs and to say,. ' My good fellows, farmers, and so forth, in all these country parishes we are about to make a clear distinction — perpetual enmity between town and county; everybody near a town is to be shut into that town; you must be shut out of the borough, and into the county.' I will tell the House what will be the result of the proposal in one or two cases. There are at this moment, within the limits of boroughs, farms the rental of which exceeds 2,500,000/., and yet these are called boroughs. We will take the borough represented by the First Lord of the Admiralty. He will speak in this debate, and can cor rect me if I am wrong. In Droitwich there is an assessment to the income- tax under Schedule A of land and buildings to the amount of 56,000/. a-year, of which 39,600/. is an assess ment of land and farms. There are four town parishes and twelve raral parishes. The town parishes contain one hundred and sixty electors, the raral two hundred and thirty-two electors. In point of fact, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman does not represent a town at all. No, the large majority of his supporters and constituents are farmers and persons as much connected with rural affairs as if they were in the centre of the county and miles away from any towns or vil lages. I say, if this line is to be drawn, it must be drawn in all cases. Take the case of the borough of Petersfield, which is also represented by an hon. Baronet on the Treasury bench. In that town the case is still more glaring. There is 31,000/-. assessed in land and buildings in the borough, but of that, 24,000/., or more than four-fifths, is in respect of land and buildings in agri cultural parishes. I am not now com plaining of those parishes being added to the town ; but the Government has no right to propose, and Parliament will never pass, a Bill the only object i859. REFORM. IV. 321 of which will be to shut as many as possible in the borough in the one case, but not to interfere in the other, and thus to diminish that great variety of suffrages and of interests which it is desirable that every Member in this House shall represent. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for India said with regard to the great measure of disfranchisement, that it was a mistake, and that he was sorry the clause was not originally introduced into the Bill which was afterwards laid on the table of the HouSe by his hon. Friend. Again, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, when he was charged with the faulty character of the clause extending the 1 ol. franchise to counties, made rather a staggering admission that this was also in the nature of a mistake, and if it was wrong, that we could likewise go into the question in Committee. But I find everything that has been done has one direction, and one only. I cannot understand the Chancellor of the Ex chequer, when speaking of the painful anxiety with which this Bill has been brought forward, he has not, in all that anxiety and deliberation, discovered that he was going to disfranchise 50,000 of the best electors of the kingdom. Now, what is the main object of this measure ? It is evidently to make the representation of the counties, if possi ble, more exclusively territorial than it is at present. I ask the House to con sider whether that is a desirable object for us to attempt ? Ask Lord Lyndhurst — long a leading statesman, acting with Gentlemen opposite; ask Lord Aberdeen. Sir Robert Peel is not here, and you can not ask him ; but you can ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chan cellor of die Exchequer could add his impressive testimony, whether it has not always been the chief difficulty of the Cabinet sitting on that side of the House — I mean with Gentlemen oppo site, for many years, far longer than I have been a politician — that they were supported by one hundred and fifty or more Gentiemen representing the coun ties, and elected veiy much in the way described by Lord Derby, and, being supported by that party, whether they have not found it utterly impossible, without doing that which was very un pleasant, or without raining themselves, which is unpleasant to a Government, to propose or carry any of those mea sures which were made necessary by the opinions and demands of the countiy. Do not let Gentlemen opposite sup pose that I am finding fault individually with any one of them in this matter. From 1842 to 1846, what was the diffi culty which the Government of Sir Robert Peel constantly found in its way ? Of that, I dare say, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle could give us a graphic and instructive description. What became of that Go vernment of 1846 ? There was a dis ruption which resulted in years of anarchy in this House. But go back to the experience of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1852. The then Government was broken up by a ma jority of nineteen votes in this House after a general election, because it was necessary, in order to satisfy the expec tations and demands of that same party sitting behind them, to propose a Bill with regard to the malt-tax, for which, on the whole, the country certainly made no demand, and to which the House was not willing to consent. I was then very sorry for Lord Derby, and I never, except once, gave a vote which I more regretted to have to record than on that occasion ; but the Government could not alter or with draw their proposition, because the one hundred and fifty Gentlemen behind them thought it necessary that such a measure should pass, and now we find the right hon.Gentleman in thesame position. Does any man believe that this is the sort of Bill that the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks best for the countiy ? Does any one suppose that a man with his intellect, and who understands all the bearings of this question, approves of— I will not say the ' deplorable rub bish,' but the grievous and fatal mis- 322 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 24, takes to be found in the clauses of this Bill? He knows that this Bill in its present shape is a Bill framed to satisfy the prejudices, the scruples, the con victions, if you like, and the fears of the one hundred and fifty country Gen tlemen who sit behind him. I should think it a great misfortune to have one hundred and fifty Gentlemen here, representing only ironworks, or only ships, or only the cotton and woollen factories of Lancashire and Yorkshire. I believe it is almost essential to a good Member of this House, so far as it depends on external circumstances, that he should have among his constituents a variety of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer would call ' interests,' per sons of various classes, occupations, and opinions. I think they keep him better to his duty, modify his opinions, and make him a more valuable Member of the House than he is likely to be if he represented only some special interest. I must say one word about that charming part of our institutions of which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) has spoken in such affectionate terms. I mean the small boroughs. They are the jewels of our representa tive system. Putting the case in the smallest number of words, you say that they send men into Parliament who cannot get in anywhere else. In one of them a boy was put in at nineteen. That is considered a great argument for perpetuating such a system. These boroughs form, in point of fact, a refuge for the politically destitute ; and all that I have heard in their favour is that the persons who find shelter in them are what would be called ' deserving ob jects.' Now, the right hon. Gentleman, I dare say, reads the papers as well and as studiously as I do ; and he will per haps recollect a case or two which I will state to the House. There was an election at Harwich the other day. It is not long since there was an election there, and I remember a statement made at the time. It was said that Mr. Bag- shaw — not now a member of this House — had discharged a drunken gardener. There were two free-traders who had carried out their principles further than the law sanctioned, and were impri soned for smuggling. A respectable parson of the parish, who had not been out of his room for two years, was brought down (by the aid of cordials, stimulants, and a sedan-chair) to the poll, and those four individuals influ enced the result of the election. Now, go to another borough. I recollect an election for the borough of Carlow. There were two troops of dragoons, two companies of infantry, and one hundred, and fifty police ; the whole of this force having, during the period of the elec tion, been engaged in keeping the peace in a town which comprised only two hundred electors. Now, notwithstand ing the picture which I have drawn of these small boroughs, I must not be understood as saying that virtuous elec tions do not take place in some of this class, and that they do not still retain some remnant of freedom. But if there be any virtue or freedom left in them, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancel lor of the Exchequer, not content with corrupting and maltreating them in every way, defaces the fair form of your county representation, and lays his sacrilegious hands upon those very spots about which everybody but my self just now speaks in such veiy high terms. I should like to give the House an instance of the justice of what I state. There has been an election at Banbury. It is but the other day that the hon. Gentleman who represents that place took his seat in this House. Banbury is a borough which I do not propose to disfranchise, but it is one which everybody who knows its size must admit to be possessed of singular inde pendence of action in political affairs. I believe the hon. Gentleman who at present represents it will admit that to be the fact. Now, just imagine what the proposition of the right hon. Gen tleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer will lead to in the case of Banbury. Imagine, if you can, the people of that 1859. REFORM. IV. 3'3 borough making speeches, canvassing, explaining their political views, and resolving upon the proper fulfilment of their political duties. Well, all this is taking place, but at the criti cal moment you may see a man — for aught I know he may be the concocter of this Bill — for it appears to me to be not so much the Bill of a statesman as of some party electioneering agent — you may see, I repeat, a man of this description, emerging after dark from the Carlton Club, proceeding to a pillar letter-box which stands quite near it upon the opposite side of the street, and dropping into it — unless, indeed, he should find it necessary to go as far as Charing Cross for the purpose of registering them— some ten or twenty letters about nine or ten o'clock in the evening, while the unfortunate people of Banbury are labouring under the de lusion that they are carrying on a great constitutional contest. Unhappy men, they little know that the resistless loco motive engine has been set to work ; that it is rushing down through county after county ; and that they will awake the next morning only to find out that, through the instrumentality of a leathern bag, which has just been deposited at the post-office, somebody is returned as their representative who has not the slightest sympathy with their interests. But this is no new thing. If anybody will turn to the report of the Municipal Corporation Commissioners in 1834, he will there find a statement made by Mr. Austin in reference to the borough of Carmarthen ; in which he gives the number of resident and non-resident freeholders not of the value of 40s., but of 4/., and, in addition, the number of 10/. occupiers. The number of bur gesses in the borough he sets down at 646 ; resident in the borough, 1 78 ; outside the borough, but still within the county, 257 ; in the county of Pem broke, 108 ; in Glamorgan, 31 ; in Car digan, 25; in Brecon, 12; and outside the limits of South Wales altogether, 35 : so that, while the number of resi dent was 178, the number of non-resi dent electors was 468. Mr. Austin then gives a list of voters at a contest which had taken place for the election of sheriffs, when 131 votes were recorded in favour of the corporation candidates, against them 51 ; thus giving a majority in their favour of 80, of which majority 75 were non-resident electors. The commissioner then goes on to say, ' In effect, therefore, the constant majority is a majority of non-residents, who, with rare exceptions, are supporters of the corporation party.' Now, let me ask if this system prevailed in the case of a 4/., is it not likely to prevail in the case of a 2/. freehold ? It must also be observed that in the former instance the votes could not be recorded by letter. The voter had to appear in person at the place of election ; but if this system of voting-papers be adopted in addition to non-residence, I know no limit what ever to the amount of corruption which it may occasion. You cannot therefore, in my opinion, too strongly express your sense of the entire extinction of freedom which this scheme is calculated to produce in all the small boroughs of the country. There is also > another point which a large portion of our fellow-countrymen regard as of the utmost importance, and to which I may be permitted briefly to refer. I allude to the borough fran chise. I have endeavoured to show that the effect of the Bill as it now stands wiU be to render counties more exclusive, and to hand over the small boroughs to rottenness and complete dependence ; for the only independence they could possess must rest upon the opinions and wishes of non-resident electors. I am not going to discuss /this question in any different tone from ' that which has hitherto marked this debate; but I would ask the House whence comes it that we are here to night discussing the question of Reform at all ? There are plenty of other things for us to do. Why, then, is this ques tion thrust upon us by Minister after Minister ? Some persons say that the noble Lord the Member for London is 324 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 24, entirely in fault. Hon. Gentlemen may say whatever they like, but such an as sertion as that goes but a very litde way indeed. The noble Lord has no par ticular desire, any more than I have, to disturb the great question. Its set tlement, however, has become a neces sity, and will continue to be a necessity to the existence of every Government, until it is set at rest in a manner that will be satisfactory to the country. [Cheers.] Do hon. Gentlemen by their cheers mean to show us that they do not want Reform ? The Government have not touched this question simply in obedience to the commands of their followers, although they have brought in this Bill in accordance with their prejudices and their fears. The farmers do not ask you for Reform, although there are, no doubt, some respects in which they desire it. The farm-labourer does not press it upon your attention. No, the demand for Reform comes from all your towns and cities ; nor is the cry heard from the mouths of the unenfran chised alone, but, in point of fact, from the great majority of the electors themselves. It is not an uncommon thing to hear it asserted — as several hon. Members have asserted in this House— that the electors of this country do not care for Reform. [' Hear, hear.'] Those hon. Gentlemen who cry ' Hear, hear,' do not know quite so much as I do about the sentiments of people residing in towns. When the electoral power was in the hands of a few corrupt cor porations the case may have been other wise, for they turned their electoral privileges into a means of annual profit, and did not like to share them with their fellow-townsmen. But I never heard it made a charge against the electors in boroughs, at the present day, that they were anxious to retain the franchise for fear of admitting others of their fellow-countrymen to be sharers, or rivals, or participators with them in the advantages which it comprises. The Government, it seems, do not think it necessary to make any change in the borough franchise. We all know that the line which was drawn in 1832 was drawn in direct and almost absolute ex clusion of all that class of persons who live by wages. Has it been a source of satisfaction to them? Have there not, upon the contrary, been constant protests against it ? Have we not seen and heard — when there was great de pression in trade, and a great scarcity of food, which now, happily, is not the case — these constant protests aggra vated into something like incipient in surrection ? That such has been the case is not to be denied. Well, and what is that you now do ? Twenty- seven years after the passing of the great Reform Bill, and after a whole generation has passed away, you pro pose to continue, it may be for twenty- seven years longer, that exclusion against which the great body of the unenfran chised population of the country have been lifting up their voices ever since 1 832 . What is it that Her Majesty's Minis ters say to us in introducing this mea sure? What will this House in effect say if it passes it into a law in its pre sent shape ? You proclaim, in a voice which will reach the farthest comer of the land, that will enter not only into the ear but into the heart of the inha bitants of every home of the class of which I am speaking in England— that we have something in our legislature which they cannot comprehend and must not intermeddle with. You will in effect say to them, ' We do not trust you, you are as ignorant, as dangerous, as little to be relied upon now as you were twenty-seven years ago.' And what will be the result? They will come to the conclusion that upon the same principle upon which you now act you will act for the next twenty-seven years, using precisely the same argu ments and pursuing the same course. And now let me pause for one mo ment to ask what sort of a generation that has been which is just passing, or has passed, away ? My answer is, such a one as was never known before. You have had under its auspices a longer period of peace than you ever previ- 1859. REFORM. IV.. 325 ously enjoyed. The humbler classes have had a larger proportion of the comforts and necessaries of life than at a preceding period. They have im proved at a rate of which your grand fathers scarcely dared to dream. You have a free press — though there may be something still to be done in order that it may become completely unfettered — a subject to which the right hon. Gentle man the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be good enough to turn his atten tion when he gets out 'of the little dif ficulty in which he is now placed. You have not only the ordinary number of public journals, but you have 300 news papers published at the price of id., cir culating all over the country. All this has been accomplished; yet you propose to exclude the members of that class to whom you are indebted for much of your prosperity — with the exception of the trifling numbers whom the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, in his small mercy, proposes to admit under the savings-bank clause — from the exercise of the franchise. I saw a statement the other day, to the effect that the operation of such a clause applied to Scotland would be to give Edinburgh about 300, and all Scot land not more than 600 additional vo ters. The borough electors are 50,000, and this extraordinary extension of the franchise will admit 2% per cent, in crease, and that is all the small dole which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his friends offer to the great body of the working classes of that countiy. Scotland is a frugal country ; its people are industrious and saving to a degree which is hardly comprehended here, and yet this boon will only enfranchise some 1 200 persons there. I am prepared to assert that this is not a Bill of Reform at all. It is, in point of fact, that which, in electioneering phrase, is considered a complete case of personation. It is not the genius of Liberty that comes before us in the shape of this Bill, but it is something which the people of this country had hoped they had seen and heard of for the last time in our histoiy. I think if it were to pass, that it would be held by the whole population of the country to be nothing better than a com plete delusion, disappointing every class, and tending to create discontent, which this House would have great difficulty hereafter in allaying. There is one point which has been dwelt upon by the right hon. Gentle man opposite and others, in which I do not feel the same extraordinary interest which some Members appear to feel, and that is as to the uniformity of fran chise. I do not say that it is necessary — I do not say that there is any ad vantage in it — but I do not see the great disadvantages which have been ascribed to it. It has been represented to me as a very democratic proceeding. I am not myself very democratic — therefore I can assure the House the scheme has not on that account any charms for me. I think it would have been just as well not to have had this uniformity ; but I do not see any harm there is in it. There is only one reason why we should com plain of it, and that is, that it would not be so easy again to move the whole franchise hereafter as it would be if the county franchise were different from that of the boroughs. But I can assure hon. Members that if they tie the two toge ther, there is no power in this House to keep the borough franchise at 10/., and unless they give up the idea of unifor mity the county franchise must come down with that of the boroughs. How ever, that is a matter for hon. Gentle men opposite to consider, and no doubt it has been considered by Her Majesty's Government. But if I have no alarm about that, there is one thing that I have some alarm, about, and that is the manner in which some Members of the House seem disposed to treat this question. I refer particularly to my hon. Friend near me. (Mr. Horsman), the right hon. Gen tleman the Member for Wilts (Mr. S. Herbert), and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry (Mr. Ellice), who has not spoken in this debate, but who wrote a letter to his constituents 326 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 24, upon the subject. The right hon. Gen tleman is an extraordinary instance of what I may call hallucination. He re presents the greatest number of work ing-men to be found in any constitu ency — out of a population of 40,000 there are 6000 electors, which is a far larger numbei> than I thought of pro posing to the House. My right hon. Friend says there is no constituency that he knows which equals his 'in in dependence, in intelligence, in virtue. I cannot admit all that. I know some thing of Coventry — my father was born there — but I never heard nor ever ob served that the people of that town were upon the whole very superior. I believe they are in no degree inferior to the same classes in other manufacturing towns. My right hon. Friend says he is in favour - of household suffrage, but as the people are not ready for that, he will do nothing, — he will have house hold suffrage or nothing; which, after all, is very much like the suffrage pro posed in what was called the ' People's Charter.' I am alarmed that the right hon. Gentleman, like the Members for Wilts and Devonport, should, in the face of a hundred meetings held spontaneously within the last month, delude himself with the idea that nobody, beyond the 650 Gentlemen in this House, cares anything about this question, and that we may comfortably get rid of it in some way here, by digging a hole in the floor of the House and burying it, as nobody cares about it. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cam bridge University (Mr. Walpole) has the same notion. He thinks it must be settled this session — that it can be — that it is necessary that it should be settled. Why? For this reason, because you know that the form in which you pro pose to settle it will not be satisfactory to the people. You know well — I think the right hon. Gentleman has confessed it, as some have — that during the autumn you may have meetings — during the win ter you may have agitation. And, what would this country have been without meetings, without agitation ? We boast that We have abolished our ancient and barbarous mode of making extensive re volutions and changes in our political system, but if you have done with war and bloodshed for these purposes, do not imagine that those changes which become necessary from time to time can be accomplished without the healthy operation, in some cases perhaps of a rude, but still a refreshing and strength ening agitation. Some Gentlemen opposite seem to forget some things that happened fif teen years ago. Then their organiza tion was complete. They had farmers' meetings everywhere. And, not content with farmers' meetings, they had an office in Old Bond-street, and a Publi cation Committee, and they had every description of instrument for an irri tating and exasperating agitation which they could possibly devise. I do not imagine for a moment that this question can, in the present temper of the House, be settled satisfactorily to the people. Are you quite sure that there is nothing in what is going on out of doors? I met a right hon. Gentleman the other day near the House, and he said to me as a great secret, ' You know, of course, that nobody does care about Reform ?' I did not agree with him upon that point. I happen to have been to some of the largest towns of this country, and I have seen meetings exceeding in num ber and exceeding in influence, I believe, almost every meeting that was held by the Anti-Com-law League during the agi tation for the repeal of the Corn-laws. The populations you are about to disappoint and defy, — what have they done? They have conquered every thing they have grappled with hitherto. I do not speak of distant realms con quered under your banners, but of arts and manufactures, and all that tends to wealth and civilization. Do you think that this population will not also con quer a much larger share of their poli tical rights than in your present mood you appear disposed to give them? There was a speech made by the hon. 1859. REFORM. IV. 327 Member for Dorset, and I agree with those who have expressed regret that that Gentleman does not speak more frequently ; but, in that speech the hon. Gentleman said, ' I am not afraid of the people of this country.' And he gave a very powerful, and eloquent, and just rebuke to a Gentleman who, in a thoughtless moment, cheered his obser vation in a sneering manner. I tell the House frankly that they do not well understand the great populations of this country, especially of the manufacturing towns. I have seen great mistakes made. I remember, in 1848, when the right hon. Gentleman above me (Sir G. Grey) was Home Secretary, there was a great panic on the loth of April — or rather before the 10th of April, for by that day the panic was laughed at. And, what was done ? I do not know what was done at the Bank, but I am told that at the British Museum that institution was actually garrisoned. There were no Minie rifles or Armstrong guns, per haps, but there were a hundred or two hundred tons of paving-stones, or boul ders, taken up to the roof of the Mu seum. Not only was it garrisoned, but, very properly, the commissariat was at tended to, and provisions for three days were laid in, and I am told the steps leading to the rooms where the medals and most precious articles are kept were cut away. The British Museum was not assaulted, but the garrison, I believe, managed to consume the three days' provisions before Sunday. Now come to a later time — the period of the Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. There was then alive a man who stood pre-eminent in this country, the Duke of Wellington. He was terrified — a man who was supposed never to have been alarmed, — he was alarmed at the people of his own country. He urged upon the Government, who of course agreed with him, to draw near the me tropolis a large number of troops in case of emergency. If half-a-dozen foreigners had attempted to get up an insunection in London they would have been put into the reservoirs in Trafal gar Square by the people themselves, and yet it was considered necessary to bring these troops near to London, to be ready in case of disturbance. I re member the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Lord Palmerston) once gave us an account of what some foreigner told him as to the conduct and deport ment of the masses of the people. The noble Lord knows a good deal of the character of the people, and he said, ' All this order is the result of a sense among the people that they have a Go vernment which, upon the whole, does not intend to oppress them; that they are a people good in themselves, intelli gent, and orderly, and that a policeman among them is an authority of high dig nity, whom they at once obey.' The remark is creditable to the noble Lord's good taste, and is perfectly just to the people of this country. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite why they are so afraid of the people ? The manufacturing, the employing class, does not fear them. At the Bradford meeting there were present when I moved the resolution, Mr. Titus Salt and Mr. Crossley, trie brother of the Member for Halifax. Those Gentle men conduct vast manufacturing and commercial undertakings. There are no men more prosperous, and none have more confidence in the people. Those two Gentlemen' agreed cordially with every proposition I made as to an extension of the suffrage. The meetings at Rochdale, Bury, Blackburn, and Bol ton were attended by Gentlemen almost equally eminent ; at the meeting at Bolton there were four Gentlemen who employ not less than 6000 or 7000 people, -and who own property of not less than a million sterling ; one of those Gentlemen thought my proposal as to the suffrage was not sufficiently extensive. Why is it they do not re gard the people with the same fears that you do? They must know what they are about; they know that any convulsion or disturbance in society would touch them first. Your landed 328 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. estates are much more permanent as property than our manufactories. Any disturbance or violent action of a demo cratic nature would be more dangerous to us than to you. Yet a large propor tion of the employers of labour favour a large extension of the suffrage, and believe it would prove for the safety of their property ; for the working-men, in thinking over this question, feel they are distrusted, that they are marked as inferiors, that they are a sort of pariahs. In that position, should there be an op portunity, great discontent and turbu lence might arise; but if you give them a vote they will have more self-respect, more elevation of mind. I will read an extract from a letter I have received from a working-man — I believe a stonemason — on the ques tion whether or not working-men have any interest in the country. He says : — ' But some say that we, as working- men, have no stake and no interest in the country. I hardly know what is meant by these assertions ; but if to make sacrifices for the good of our country be any proof of an interest, I believe the working classes can clearly show greater sacrifices, and fairly claim to. have greater stake and interest both in the country and in good government. I had three uncles who all lost their lives fighting for their country ; I had three brothers, two of whom served under Lord Weyington throughout the Peninsular campaign ;' and my third and youngest brother lost his life in the Indian war, and now lies buried at Kurnaul. I had two nephews, one of whom died of the cholera at Varna, and the other, after serving throughout the Crimean war, was raised from the ranks, and is now a lieu tenant. No doubt but very many work ing-men could tell of even greater sacrifices and similar tales of their families, except the last. To, these statements I would only add, that if the working classes have 'no. stake and no interest in their country, they must be wonderful lovers of their country for nothing.' There is only one other point to which I will allude; it was touched upon by the Solicitor-General when he referred to the state of Europe; he warned the House to beware what it was about to do in regard to. this question. I draw quite a different lesson, a differ ent conclusion, from what he said of .the state of Europe. In 1830 there was also a state of Europe and especially of France that was nqt satisfactory, and it had great effect on the legislation of this House, in the course of the two suc ceeding years, on the question of Re form. In 1848 the state of Europe was again unsatisfactory, and was it not a subject of congratulation that two years before the Corn-laws had been abol ished, and one great cause of discontent removed ? I assure you that resistance is not always Conservative. I profess to be, in intention, as Conservative as you, — I believe, infinitely more so, if you look forward twenty or thirty years into the future. Was not Free-trade Conservative ? And yet you resisted it to the last. I recollect occasions when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us of the cruelty practised on the ruined and betrayed agriculturist. I recollect he addressed us on the condition of the farm-labourer two or three years after wards ; and since that time his condi tion has been improving rapidly. Is not prosperity Conservative ? Is not peace Conservative? Any energies I possess I have devoted to their advance ; I have endeavoured to stand on the rales of Political Economy, and to be guided by the higher rules of trae Morality ; and when advocating a measure of Reform larger than some are prepared to grant, I appear in that character, for I believe a substantial measure of Reform would elevate and strengthen the character of our population ; that, in the language of the beautiful prayer read here every day, it would tend ' to knit together the hearts of all persons and estates within this realm.' I believe it would add to the authority of the decisions of Parlia ment ; and I feel satisfied it would confer a lustre, which time could never dim, on that benignant reign under which we have the happiness to live. REFORM. v. BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 18, 1865. [This speech was spoken in the Town Hall of Birmingham at a meeting when, according to annual custom, the Members for Birmingham met their constituents to discuss the political questions of the day.] When my honourable Colleague and myself had the pleasure last year of meeting you in this hall, there was one subject which was pressing upon the minds of all of us, and causing us great disquietude. We were encompassed by rumours of war. A small State in the North of Europe was surrounded by difficulties — mainly, I am afraid, of its own creation — and it was assailed with what, in this country, we thought al most a savage vindictiveness by a power ful people comprising one vast empire and several kingdoms. We were not disposed to go into the contest, and to mingle in that war ; and you will re collect that my honourable Colleague spoke in the most emphatic language against the idea that we should enter into a war — first, with Germany, and perhaps, afterwards, with some other States of Europe, on behalf of Den mark. And, following him, I used these words — speaking now from my recol lection of them — I said that any Govern ment in England that plunged us into war for the sake of Denmark would deserve not only the condemnation but the execration of the people. But still, although we took so de cided a view, we cannot conceal from ourselves that there was a certain rest lessness in the public mind ; it was observed that those newspapers in Lon don particularly which are supposed to represent the Government, were strongly urging the countiy to war, and the papers which are supposed to represent the Opposition were urging the Govern ment to the same course, no doubt with the kindly intention of embarrassing and destroying the Ministry. But we had to recollect that at the head of the Government, as it exists, are two very ancient statesmen — the Prime Minister and the head of the Foreign Office ; and, remembering that but ten years ago they were the Ministers mainly respon sible for the war with Russia, we could not but feel that the danger which im pended over us was not wholly imagin ary. How we escaped the war people seem hardly to know. Some say that the Queen was very much opposed to a war with Germany — as doubtless she would be opposed to any war which she believed could possibly be avoided — and, if we owe our chances of peace to the opinion of the Queen, for my part, I say with gladness that I am 33° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 18, grateful to the Queen. Some say that we owe peace to the younger members of the Cabinet, led chiefly by Mr. Glad stone, who were opposed to the war. If that be true, I tender my thanks to the majority of the Cabinet. And some say that the unusual speculative mone tary engagements and investments of last year made all the moneyed interests of the country look on the prospect of war as something absolutely appalling and ruinous. If that be so, I tender my thanks to the moneyed interests of the country. But, during the session, this question was incessantly discussed, and the Go vernment exhibited its usual feebleness, and the Opposition its usual folly. No body could get the Government to say whether it was for peace or war. If a question was asked about the station, or movements, or destination of the fleet, an answer was given which might be read one way or the other ; and if the Opposition was not in favour of war — as they afterwards declared they were not — they showed it by an incessant attempt to drive the Government to some act which should make hostilities inevitable. Towards the end of the session, if you are readers of the debates in Parliament — and I hope you do not wholly neglect them — you would see that there was a very long, and what was called a great debate, and then the feebleness of the Government and the folly of the Opposition were manifest, and the two sides of the House had to make some ridiculous recantations of all the policy that in past times they have appeared to advocate. There were remarkable speeches on the Opposition side, one made by General Peel, another made by Lord Stanley; and there was . a speech of remarkable ability, and in every way admirable, made by Mr. Hardy, the Member for Leominster. Now, I am not charging General Peel, or Lord Stanley, or Mr. Hardy with :<¦ recanting as far as regards their indi vidual opinions; but speaking — if they did speak — on behalf of their party, I w say that their speeches contained a general and wholesale repudiation, of the whole foreign policy of this country, as regards the continent of Europe, from the time of William III to the reign of Victoria. They did not say, perhaps, as I once said in this hall — and some men criti cised what I had said with a severity that would have been perfectly just if what I had said had been untrue — they did not say, as I had said, that the foreign policy of this country for the last 170 years has been a system of gigantic out-door relief to the English aristocracy, but they admitted this — and I am willing to accept it, if they will, in place of my statement — that it had been a cause of enormous burdens and sacri fices to the people of England. I could not help, during these discussions — in which I took no part, for this reason, that, finding it my duty to vote against the Opposition, I hardly trusted myself to make the speech which, if I had risen to address the House, I must have made against the policy and the conduct of the Government. I thought of the position of those ancient statesmen to whom I have referred. Now, do not imagine that I am speaking disrespect fully of Lord Palmerston or of Lord Russell, but I am speaking to my fellow- countrymen on a question of the most stupendous importance to their present and future interests. I say that these two statesmen have in past times held or professed opinions which I think altogether unsound, and pernicious to the nation. Going back to the time just before the Russian war— to the year 1853 — I will give you an extract from a speech made by Lord Russell at the town of Greenock, in Scotland, on the duty of England with regard to its foreign rela tions, and I will show you what a change has taken place from that day to this. Bear in mind this was just before the opening of the Russian war, and when that question was being discussed, and when that horrid shape of carnage was appearing above the horizon, and every thoughtful man looked at it with dread, 1865. REFORM. V. 331 Lord Russell said this to the Baillies and other sensible inhabitants of Greenock. He said : — ' It is likewise to be considered — and I trust we shall none of us forget it — that this country holds an important position among the nations of the world ; that not once, but many times, she has stood for ward to resist oppression, to maintain the independence of weaker nations, and to preserve to the general family of nations that freedom, that power of governing themselves, of which others have sought to deprive them. I trust that character will not be forgotten, will not be aban doned by a people which is now stronger in means, which is more populous, and more wealthy., than it ever has been at any former period. This then, you will agree with me, is not a period to abandon any of those duties towards the world, towards the whole of mankind, which Great Britain has hitherto. performed.' Now you see what Lord John Rus sell at that day proposed for us to do. You, hard-working men — and every man who receives his wages at the end of the week, be his labour what it may — were here pledged by Lord John Russell not to abandon any of those duties towards the world, towards the whole of mankind, which Great Britain has hitherto performed. We were to defend all weaker nations, and to take care that nobody was molested in any part of the globe. I read this passage in order that you may see the sort of thing which, only twelve years ago, was spoken by a Cabinet Minister, to a meeting of what are generally reputed to be sensible Scotch people. But if I were to take Lord Palmerston's speeches, I dare say I could find a cartload of rhetorical rubbish of exactly the same character. During many years these statesmen have been making their popularity upon such a theory as that, and their news papers have been reviling Mr. Cobden and myself for a different view, and now you find that Parliament, by an unanimous vote, has discarded and abandoned and overturned the whole of this policy, and has sent the whole thing— lie and superstition and all— into that receptacle to which all lies and superstitions will ultimately go. I think myself that Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, in their now mature age, must feel that either they have been themselves greatly deceived, or they have done much to deceive their countrymen ; and I think my country men will derive from what I have said this lesson, which they may learn on many pages of history, — that it is not always certain that men are great states men because they happen to fill great offices. But now if Denmark was allowed to be dismembered, I do not know why Holland, or Belgium, or Portugal, or Turkey — [A Voice: 'Or America'] — I am confining myself, as you will ob serve, to Europe — I cannot see the pro bability of that state of things arising to which my honourable Colleague has referred, when the principle of non intervention will require to be departed from. I agree with him that the coun try has other interests than its com mercial interests, and that it would be a mean and a base thing for the people of England to do, as I am sorry to say our Government has often done, to determine what was the exact gain or loss commercially in the conquest of an island, or upon the opportunity of trade, before it determined to go to war or to maintain peace. My own opinion is that, taking the events of the last few years — the war in Italy, in which we took no part, the war in Den mark, which we abstained from med dling in — the debate of last Session — and the great division which took place upon this question, — I think I am not much mistaken in pronouncing the theory of the balance of power to be pretty nearly dead and buried. You' Cannot comprehend at a thought what is meant by that balance of power. If the record could be brought before youj — but it is not possible to the eye of ^ humanity to scan the scroll upon which I 332 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 1 8, are recorded the sufferings which the theory of the balance of power has entailed upon this country. It rises up before me when I think of it as a ghastly phantom which during one hundred and seventy years, whilst it has been wor shipped in this country, has loaded the nation with debt and with taxes, has sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thou sands of Englishmen, has desolated the homes of millions of families, and has left us, as the great result of the pro fligate expenditure which it has caused, a doubled peerage at one end of the social scale, and far more than a doubled pauperism at the other. I am very glad to be here to-night, amongst other things, to be able to say that we may rejoice that this foul idol — fouler than any hea'then tribe ever worshipped — has at last been thrown down, and that there is one superstition less which has its hold upon the minds of English statesmen and of the English people. And if this be true, surely my hon. Friend need not be so very careful to guard his observations with regard to the diminution of armaments ; for if it be now determined that we are not to send armies to the continent of Europe, and fleets to blockade ports and people with whom we have no concern, and if the British North American Colonies are about to make themselves into a great and powerful confederation still in friendly alliance with this country, and if the colonies of Australia are so dis tant and so powerful that nobody can molest them, and if the people of these islands are better fed— as I believe they are better fed than they have been for the last eighty years— I say, that if they are more loyal to the law and more friendly to every good institution of the country, there is no necessity whatso ever to extend the annual military ex penditure, which is double that which the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel' thought necessary five and twenty years ago. There is one other thing to say. If we are not this next session to discuss the question of Denmark, the question of Italy, and the question of America, what are we to discuss? It is quite clear to me that whether we have more disposition or not, we shall have a good deal more time to discuss our home affairs. Now what is the question which some gentlemen who have been eating a very good dinner and making very foolish speeches at Torquay, — what is the question which I think Lord Devon says — copying the language of his leader Mr. Disraeli — is ' looming in the not distant future?' what is the question that will not go to sleep? And, let me remind you of this, that really great questions that affect the true and lasting interests and rights of men, never can be laid fast asleep ; they always,, somehow or other, wake up again. There is a startling exemplifica tion of this in what is now taking place in the United States. You know that for thirty years past the statesmen of the United States have voted the negro a very great nuisance; they said they would not talk about him; some of theni would not have petitions about him in Congress; they swore each other to silence; the negro's business was to grow rice, and sugar, and tobacco, and cotton, but not to make his ap pearance on the floor of Congress, and therefore they determined to have done with him and to bury the question, and they congratulated the countiy that it was buried. And now after a few years you see North and South — both re sponsible for the oppression of the negro — in the most deadly conflict, and the negro stands forth in vast pro portions before the world. He is rub bing the marks of the branding-iron from his forehead, the shackles which have bound him so long are dropping from his limbs, and the chattel which was bought and sold by these states men is now becoming every day a free man before the world. Well, then, there is this question that will not sleep — the question of the ad mission of the people of this country to the rights which are guaranteed to them, and promised to them by everything i865. REFORM. V. 333 that we comprehend as the constitution of this United Kingdom. In 1861, as my hon. Friend has described to you — and I listened to his observations with very great pleasure, because some per sons may suppose that he takes a calmer view of this question than I do — that great question of Parliamentary Reform was also voted a nuisance ; and it was betrayed, and it was slain, and they thought it was buried. And, when I use the word ' betrayed,' do not sup pose I am using a word of improper harshness to the Minister or the Minis ters concerned. My hon. Friend said truly enough that a measure of that kind being submitted to Parliament, the Minister or Ministers by whom it was presented should be prepared to stand or fall by it. I was reading only within the last few days a very interesting book, The History of the Passing of the Reform Bill, written by an estimable clergyman in my neighbourhood — Mr. Molesworth, son of the Vicar of Roch dale — a book which you would do well to look at if it comes in your way ; and there I find that Lord Grey — the Lord Grey of the time — did not stand before the House of Lords, with a smirk, and that kind of look about him which led them to believe that he did not mean it, but told them, in language as distinct and emphatic as our English tongue affords, that the Ministry would stand or fall by that measure ; and, more, that if it were their business and duty to bring in another Bill, if that should be rejected, it would not be less efficient than that which they were then dis cussing. There is not a man in the House of Commons who was there in i860, who knows anything at all of the manner in which Bills and questions are treated there, — and there is not a man in the present Cabinet, who does not know perfectly well that if Lord Palmerston had said on some one evening in the year i860, that his Government would stand or fall by the Reform Bill then before the House, that Bill would have passed through the House of Commons without one single effective hostile di vision; nay, I have heard it from an authority, that I believe cannot err upon this question, that the sagacious leaders of the House of Lords had resolved that if the Bill did come up from the Commons they would not take the re sponsibility of rejecting it. That Bill or question is not dead ; it takes shape again, and you perceive that the Tories, and those Whigs who are like Tories — all Whigs are not like Tories, therefore I make the distinction — the Tories, and those Whigs who are like Tories, have an uncomfortable feel ing which approaches almost to a shiver. What is this apparition which alarms them 7 If I were not wishful to say something different from that to which it would lead me, I should be tempted to read you those speeches at the Tor quay dinner to show you what it is that they are afraid of. I will tell you what it is. They are afraid of the five or six millions of Englishmen, grownup men who are allowed to marry, to keep house, to rear children, who are expected to earn their living, who pay taxes, who must obey the law, who must be citi zens in all honourable conduct — they are afraid of the five or six millions who by the present system of representation are shut out, and insultingly shut out, from the commonest rights of citizen ship. We are proud of our countiy; and there are many things in it which, as far as men may rightly be proud, we may be proud of. We may be proud of this, that England is the ancient country of Parliaments. We have had here, with scarcely an intermission, Par liaments meeting constantly for six hun dred years; and doubtless there was something of a Parliament even before the Conquest. England is the mother of Parliaments. I will undertake to say, with a little latitude of expression, that Lord John Russell, before he aban doned the cause of Reform — perhaps even since — talked very much, in the daytime, and in all probability dreamt in the night, of the time when all 334 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. It countries in Europe would be strictly constitutional, and there would be a representative assembly after his own heart. If this be so, I ask you, men of Birmingham here— a fair representation of the great mass of the five millions throughout the United Kingdom — I ask you why you should be thus treated in your own land ? You know the boast we have of what takes place when negro-slaves land in England ; you know what one of our best poets has said, that if their lungs but breathe our air, that moment they are free ; they touch our countiy, and their shackles fall. But how is it with an Englishman ? An Englishman, if he goes to the Cape, can vote ; if he goes further, to Australia, to the nascent empires of the New World, he can vote ; if he goes to the Canadian Confederation, he can vote ; and if he goes to those grandest colonies of England not now dependent upon the English Crown, there, in twenty free, and, in the whole, in thirty-five different States, he can give his free and inde pendent vote. It is only in his own country, on his own soil, where he was born, the very soil which he has en riched with his labour and with the sweat of his brow, that he is denied this right which in every other community of Englishmen in the world would be freely accorded to him. I agree very much with the gentle men of the Torquay dinner, not as to the quality of the dinner, but as to that apparition which seemed to alarm even their formidable and robust digestion. This apparition is not a pleasant one. This state of things I hold to be dan gerous, and one that cannot last. It may happen, as it happened thirty years ago, that the eyes of the five millions all through the United Kingdom may be fixed with an intense glare upon the doors of Parliament; it was so in the years 1831-32. There are men in this room who felt then, and know now, that it required but an accident — but one spark to the train, and this country would have been in the throes of revo lution ; and these gentlemen who are so alarmed now lest a man who lives in a 10/. house in a county, and a 61. house in a borough, should have a vote, would have repented in sackcloth and ashes'that they had ever said one word or given one vote against Lord Grey's Reform Bill. I say that accidents always are happening, not to individuals only, but to nations. It was the accident of the French Revolution of 1830 that preceded that great movement in this countiy. You may have accidents again, but I do not hold that to be statesman ship which allows the security, the tran quillity, the loyalty of a people to be disturbed by any accident which they are able to control. If the five millions should once unitedly fix their eyes with an intense look upon the door of that House where my hon. Friend and I ex pect so soon to enter, I would ask who shall say them nay? Not the mace upon the table of die House; not the four hundred easy gentlemen of the House of Lords who lounge in and out of that decorated chamber; not the dozen gentlemen who call themselves statesmen, and who meet in Downing- street; perhaps not even those more appalling and more menacing person ages who have their lodgment higher up Whitehall. I say there is no power in this country, as opinion now stands, and as combination is now possible, there is no power in this countiy that can say 'Nay' for one single week to the five millions, if they are intent upon making their way within the doors of Parlia ment. This is the apparition which frightens the gentlemen at Torquay — the climate of Torquay, I have always heard, is somewhat relaxing, and we may make a little allowance for that nervous excitement which was exhibited last week. But it gives trouble, this apparition gives trouble in other quarters, to which I would pay more respect. It is evident from the books, and the pamphlets, and the letters that are written, and the speeches that are made upon it. Every body who does not want Reform says that nobody wants Reform, and though i86r. REFORM. V. 335 this is a subject which they say the people do not care about, they imme diately begin upon it and make it the staple of their own speeches. Two gen tlemen have recently come before the public on this subject, whom I would not class with those of whom I have been speaking. One is Mr. Charles Buxton, the Member for Maidstone ; he is a very honest and excellent person, but, after the proposition he has made, I should be slow to affirm that he is a robust politician. Mr. Buxton has put forward a scheme which I will pass from after one sentence, and that is that two of your townsmen shall go up to the poll at the next election, and one of them .shall give one vote to Mr. Scholefield and myself, or to any two candidates he may prefer; and the other shall give two votes to each of such candidates as he shall prefer; and the only justifica tion is that one lives in a house above 10/. rental, and the other in a house below 10Z. I was very much surprised that any man in political life should have propounded such a scheme. He found, what he ought to have thought of before, that no one was in favour of it. The other gentleman on whom I would make an observation is a Mem ber of the House of Lords, the son of that Lord Grey of whom I have been speaking — the Lord Grey of the present time. Now Lord Grey is an eminent and a very capable man ; everything that he says at least demands an ex amination. I have a great respect for Lord Grey for two special reasons. I heard him make a speech in the House of Commons, when he was there as Lord Howick, against the Corn-law, and he quoted a grand and solemn passage of Scripture against that atrocious law — and the Protectionists said that it was very vulgar to quote Scripture on such a subject. Lord Grey again made a great speech in the House of Lords against the Russian war, and that showed some moral courage, and from my view of that question, I think it showed both intelligence and patriotism. Therefore I come to the consideration of anything he says with the most favourable feeling towards him. Lord Grey, I said, is very capable — that is, capable with things that are possible ; but like myself, or like you, he is not capable with the impossible — and his undertaking is this, to reconcile something which he thinks will be, or will appear like justice to the people, with the non-disturbance of the existing supremacy of his order. Now, it is no use attempting great political changes without disturbance; the object is to disturb something. The Reform Bill which his father brought in, and which will make him renowned through all English history, disturbed the borough- mongers to a remarkable degree. And the Bill which repealed the Corn-law which Lord Grey so honourably ap proved, disturbed landlords and farmers, and did them nearly as much good as it did the people. Therefore, I do not care a bit about political change. I have no hostility to it because it makes some disturbance ; that is precisely what we want. What then do you think Lord Grey has proposed? I wish you to observe it minutely, to see what it is that one of the. most acute minds in the country can propose in opposition to the plain and simple proposition to which my hon. Friend has given his warm approval to day, and so often before. Lord Grey — I am quoting, not from his book, but from a friendly criticism in the Spectator, which newspaper proposes that votes should be given after the cumulative fashion. Now I must explain that — [Uproar in the hall] — and if the gentle man there, who is rather pressed in the crowd, will only listen, he will hear the most amusing proposition he has ever heard in his life. Lord Grey, as I understand, proposes that when there are two candidates to be elected, or three, or any number — (I will take two for the sake of the simplest illustration) — that any man coming to vote, instead of giving one vote for Mr. Scholefield and another to me, might give both to 336 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 1 8, Mr. Scholefield or both to me. Now, let us see how it would work. Take your last election : there were three can didates, and two Members to be elected. I will assume, for the sake of illustration, that this borough had a number of elec tors equal to 10,000, and that 6,500 were Liberal, and would support us, and 3,500 would have been disposed to support Mr. Acland, when he was a candidate, though that, as you know, is a very wild supposition. Look how it would work. The 3,500, we will sup pose, kept well together, and instead of giving 3,500 votes, which we now call plumpers, each man would give him (Mr. Acland) two, which would make 7,000 ; so Mr. Acland would stand on the poll with 7,000 votes. If the re maining 6,500 who were Liberal kept together, and had an equal regard for Mr. Scholefield and myself and voted steadily for him and for me, we should have 6,500 each, and if one more voted for Mr. Scholefield than for me, of course Mr. Scholefield would be at the head of the poll as regards myself, and Mr. Acland would be at the head of the poll as regards both ; and thus the gen tleman who came into your town upon principles which are repudiated by two- thirds or the vast majority of the electors would, under this ingenious scheme, be returned by our worthy Mayor the next day at the head of the poll. That is what they call, I suppose, not disturbing anything. We have heard of races — I have heard of donkey-races, where the last wins. So in this case, the slow est animal would ran off with the prize. That is not all, because Lord Grey has several other propositions. One is that Members should be given to Uni versities. I happen to know that the Universities which are now represented could not at any time during the last sixty years — during which Lord Grey and his father (one or the other) have been statesmen — have been induced to return either of them to Parliament. Lord Grey proposes, further, that pro fessions, such as lawyers and doctors, should have representatives in Parlia ment ; not from them as citizens, as we have now, but from them as lawyers and doctors. I have had the misfortune of late years to fall very unfortunately into the hands of the lawyers, and hardly anything, I assure you, can be more painful or more costly. Then, occasionally, we all of us have to fall into the hands of the doctor; and, though we feel grateful to him, we would much rather see him in our houses as a friend than in his profes sional character. If I wanted law I should go to the lawyer, and if I wanted medicine or surgery I should go to the physician or the surgeon ; but I should not like the public and political interests of the people of this country to go into the hands of a class of men because they were lawyers or because they were doctors. In fact, there is nothing like this that I recollect, except the propo sition of old Mr. Weller, who, when his son was engaged in some legal business, recommended him to consult a friend of his because he was a very good judge of a horse. But I have not done with Lord Grey's proposition. He proposes that the House of Commons itself should have the authority on certain occasions to nominate as Members of its own body certain prominent men from amongst its number. For example, if a Member of the House, a prominent man, from some cause or other had failed of his election, that the House of Commons should have the right to give him the nomination of a perpetual seat in that House, in order that the House might be sure to have a Member whom some great constituency had rejected. But now to you men — to the working-men of Birmingham — he offers another pro position, which is that there should be a register of trades, and that a certain number of Members should be elected by certain trades, enough to allow them to speak in the House of Commons; but rely upon it, not enough seriously. to affect the decision of that House. I have always thought that it was one of the great objects of statesmen in our i865. REFORM. V. 337 time not to separate the people into sections and classes, but rather to unite them all in one firm and compact body of citizenship, equally treated by the law, and equally loyal to the law and to the Government of the country. But Lord Grey proposes some things that are right. He would extend the suffrage, and he would abolish many, if not all, the very small boroughs. But having made these concessions, he adds to them the propositions which I have described, and which more than neu tralise the gifts which he would confer upon you ; and I beg you to take the warning which my hon. Friend has given you, and which I will venture to repeat — to look with the greatest possible suspicion upon any of these fancy pro positions of Reform. The question is a great question, and a simple question, and if any man comes before you with a complex and involved scheme which is difficult to understand, take note of this, that he does not offer you solid coin in payment of your claim, with the impress of the English Constitution upon it, but he offers you flash notes or coin of an inferior or worthless metal. I am often charged, as you know, with having too little reverence for au thority in this country. Some have even dared in public newspapers to charge me with disloyalty, to the head of the executive in this, countiy. There is one disloyalty which I hold to be worse than all other — worse than that which turns its back upon the Crown, or turns its back upon the peerage, — and that is disloyalty to freedom and to the people. If representation be not an evil — and who in this country shall say it is ? — what is the use of all these tricks not to complete representation, but to avoid it and escape it ? I want to ask what is this representation that we consider the foundation of liberty in this king dom? If all the men in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland — 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 — were assembled on Salis bury Plain to determine on great public questions, the crowd would be too great for business, and chaos would come. It is therefore resolved, and has been resolved for six hundred years, that counties and boroughs and districts, and the people in their different locali ties, shall send up men in whom they have confidence, to meet at a certain time and place, and having the fear and the regard which I trust we all have for those who send us there, to act honour ably in the face of God and of our conscience, and honourably in the face of our countiy, on behalf of the true and solid interests of the nation. But if you did decide on Salisbury Plain with that vast multitude, clearly the majority must carry the day ; and if you split the nation up into constituencies, clearly if you are to have any representation at all, the majority must carry the day. There is a great fear of majorities amongst these people. The people of Torquay did not go into much detail, and therefore they did not say much on that point, but they have a great fear of what they call 'numbers,' and of election and legislation by majorities. What is a majority in Birmingham? It holds one opinion, and we are supposed to represent it ; but the majority in Liver pool — a town bigger than Birmingham — in the present state of the consti tuencies, holds a different opinion, and it sends one man who agrees with us, and another man who always contradicts him. The minority in Birmingham is in a certain sense represented by the majority of Liverpool, and taking the majorities in some districts, and the minorities in others, if there be an opinion that is worth anything which is held by any constituency, as a matter of course it has its representative, who can speak on its behalf in that House ; but surely nobody in his senses would ask that in a representative country the minorities in all the constituencies should send Members to Parliament, and that their business when they got there should be always to say 'No' when the majority said ' Ay.' I want to know whence this fear of the people is. Will somebody under- 33» SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 18, take to tell us why is this fear of the people? It does not exist elsewhere. It does not exist in the various countries of Europe, where representative systems are being daily established. It does not exist anywhere amongst Englishmen, except in these two islands. I have spoken to you already of Australia. The franchise in Australia, doubtless, is lower than it is in this countiy : but Australian Govemments legislate in accordance with the opinions of the Australian people. As to , Canada, I have here a little extract which I will read to you. You know that the pro vince of Canada — of the two Canadas — New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and I suppose Newfound land and all the British North American provinces, are about to make a Confede ration — a State of considerable magni tude and they wish our Parliament, this present session, to pass a measure which shall be the foundation and con stitution of that future Confederacy. Here is an extract from the speech of Mr. George Brown, who is at this pre sent moment the most prominent of Canadian Ministers, explaining the scheme : — ' The duration of Parliament will pro bably be limited to five years, and of course it will be composed of two branches — a legislative Council appointed by the Government of the day on the principle of equality of the sections, and a House of Commons, in which we are to obtain that so long desired, so long earnestly contended for Reform— Representation by Population." Therefore our Parliament is this session about to pass a Bill affecting the British North American provinces which these gentlemen tell us will be wholly de structive if applied to this countiy. I want to ask you, the men of Birming ham, who have recently been reading the papers a good deal, especially with regard to what is taking place in the United States — and I shall, like my hon. Friend, avoid any allusion to that terrible revolution which is taking place there — if you have observed that in the State of New York alone 700,000 men voted at the last Presidential election, and that throughout the whole of the Free States not less than 4,000,000 votes were given, and that they were all given with the most perfect order and tranquillity throughout the whole of the States ? But perhaps our friends who oppose us will say, ' We do not fear about elections and order. What we fear is this — the legislative results of this wide extension of the franchise.' I am ready to test it in any countiy by the results of legislation. I say, whether you go to South Africa, or to Australia, or to the British North American provinces, or to the States of the American Union, you will find — excluding always those States where slavery injures the state of society — you will find that life and property are as secure, you will find that education is much more extended amongst the people, that there is quite as wide a provision for their religious interests, that the laws are as merciful and just, that taxes are imposed and levied with as great equality, and that the millions of your countrymen who are now established in those countries are at least as well off in all the cir cumstances of life as are the people of this country whom they have left behind them. I confess that I never yet heard of a man who returned to this country from any of those countries under the impression that he would be more secure here than he would be there. I have a very intelligent friend in London— he is an eminent man, whose friendship I consider a great honour and advantage to myself — who wrote to me the other day, and said, ' I do not think it is good tactics at present, in discussing the question of Reform, to make any reference to the United States.' But I am not asking you to follow the example of the United States. I am only showing you that there, and in the Canadian provinces, and in Australia, Englishmen can vote in perfect order in vast numbers, and that they can legislate with all the justness, and all i865. REFORM. V. 339 the fairness, and all the good to their people which we, even speaking in the most favourable language, can ever gain from the legislation of the Government of this country. But still, I ask you to answer me this question if you can. There is something — tell me what it is — that these people at Torquay are afraid of. They talk about our insti tutions ; and if I were to read you the report of one of these speeches which I have here, you would find in every sen tence that there was something said about ' our institutions,' and it comes out that the ' institutions ' are what they call Church and State. It is not very distinct, but because we have heard it for fifty years — some of us — we begin to have a kind of glimpse of what it means. It does not mean the House of Com mons, and it does not mean chapels, and what is more, it does not mean churches in any other sense than the political sense, for a man must be a fool who supposes that any extension of the suffrage in this country, or any demo cratic form of government, would lessen by one single brick or stone or piece of timber or scantling any place of worship of any sect or church in this country ; and more than that, he must be a block head beyond all power of argument to suppose that in this great community the ministers of your various free churches and dissenting sects would be less thought of than they are at present, or that the gentleman whom I saw on this platform to-night (Dr. Miller) would have less respect or influence here than he has at this moment. But this, I suspect, is what they fear. I have sought a good deal into this question, and it seems to me as if they had a notion that in this country we have some institutions which have come down to us from the middle ages — from what some people call the dark ages — and that these institutions may not permanently harmonize with the intel ligence and the necessities of the nine teenth century in which we live. The 'institutions' are truly safe enough if the Government be in the 'hands of the institution ; and if the Peerage and the Established Church are to rule in England, then I presume that the Peerage and the Established Church, in their present condition, will be per manently safe; and if the great patronage of our vast expenditure is to be dispensed perpetually amongst the ruling class, the ruling class as a matter of course will take extreme care of the patronage. There is something very sacred in that patronage. There are many families in this country with long lines of ances try, who, if patronage were curtailed, would feel very much as some of us feel in Lancashire when the American war has stopped our supplies of cotton. They look upon patronage as a holy thing, not to be touched by profane hands. I have no doubt they have in their minds the saying of a great friend of mine, though he is an imaginary character — I mean Hosea Bigelow, the zxAhox of the Bigelow Papers. He says — ' It is something like a fulfilling the pro phecies, When all the first families have all the best offices.' But, Sir, I protest against this theory. I protest against the theory that the people of this country have an unreason able and violent desire to shake or overturn institutions which they may not theoretically approve of. What are these people admitting by making these statements and expressing these fears? Are the people really against the House of Lords ? [A Voice : ' No.'] They say — I am constantly told — the people like the Lords very much. I never think it worth my while to deny it ; for I am perfectly, con tent to live under the institutions which the intelligence, and the virtue, and the experience of my countrymen fairly represented in Parlia ment shall determine upon. I was told when this Government was formed — you must recollect that some people did me the honour to suppose that I should be asked to take office in Lord Palmer ston's Government, along with my friends Mr. Gibson and Mr. Cobden. 34° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 1 8, Mr. Cobden was in America at the time, — I suppose they did not like him much better than they liked me, but it is possible they disliked him rather less. Mr. Cobden did not take the seat which was offered him for reasons which were then made public, but the state ment which was made to me — which came from Lord Palmerston to be con veyed to me — was this, that I had ex pressed opinions in recent speeches with regard to institutions, or an institution, which the majority of Englishmen deemed essential, which would make it impossible for him to offer me a seat in his Government. I had attended meetings — you must recollect — in fact, the first I attended here after I was elected one of your representatives. I afterwards went to Glasgow, and to Edinburgh, and to Manchester, and to Bradford, and the largest room in all these places could not contain one-half of those who wished to come to hear something said on the question which I was discussing, and the speeches which were then made were supposed to be tainted with rather less reverence for the House of Lords than some persons think proper ; and therefore, though I was fit to be your representative, and was applauded by listening thousands of my countrymen, I was not qualified to take office in her Majesty's Government. But is it trae that the people are against the Church ? Do they ever, in the slightest degree, abstain from giving respect and honour to any minister of that Church who acts even though it be with the feebleness which belongs to all efforts in that character— who acts in any degree consistent with the position of a Christian minister? Be sides, if the Church is the poor man's Church, surely the poor man must know it; and, therefore, who could imagine for a moment that the people of this country, acting fairly through their representatives, would do anything as regards that Church which would damage its usefulness as a Christian in stitution, or make it less honoured or less influential in the spread of Chris tianity amongst the population of these islands ? Why are they, then, afraid of the people ? If a million more electors — I believe the last Bill only proposed to add half a million — were admitted, is there any single interest that deserves one moment's consideration that this million of new electors, joined with the present miUion of electors, would com bine in Parliament to uproot and de stroy? I am not one called upon to defend our .institutions. It is not my business, because they are not attacked ; but I will assert this, that the Crown — which is the most venerable of the institutions to which it is supposed democracy could be hostile — that the Crown is not opposed to the admission of this million or half million, and that the Queen of these realms has more than once from her own lips declared to Parliament her free consent to the admission of this number of people to the franchise. It follows, then, I say, that the insti tutions which people are so much afraid of are in themselves unpopular or hurt ful, or else that the people themselves are grossly slandered. I would insist on this ; since the power of the Crown was limited two hundred years ago, and since the power of the' nobles was limited thirty years ago, good govern ment has gained greatly in this country, and the people are in all circumstances better, and I am quite sure that the respect shown to the Crown is more general by far than it was at an earlier period. But our Constitution involves necessarily the representation of the people, and in calling for this represen tation we stand upon a foundation from which no argument and no sophistry can ever remove us. The House of Com mons is in reality the only guarantee we have for freedom. If you looked at any other country, and saw nothing but a monarch, he might be a good king and might do his best, but you would see that there is no guarantee for freedom— you know not who will be his successor. If you saw a country i865. REFORM. V. 34i with no Crown, but with a handful of nobles, administering the government of the country, you would say there is no guarantee there for freedom, be cause a number of individuals acting together have not the responsibility, or the feeling of responsibility, that one man has, and they do things which one man would not dare to do. If there be a man here who feels himself and his prejudices rise up against the statements I am making, he, at least, will admit that the real and only permanent foun dation for political freedom in any country is in, the establishment and maintenance of a system of political representation — in your Houses of Parliament. At that dinner at Torquay, a noble man presided whom I had the pleasure of knowing a little when he was a Member of the House of Commons, and another nobleman whom I have also known there made the principal speech, and what do you think they did ? They had a number of toasts— which is a thing I do not recommend, because they do not drink them in cold water — and they proposed, first, what are called the ceremonial toasts — though one would hope they are not altogether ceremonial — and amongst them the House of Lords. The toast was re sponded to in a long speech by Lord Devon. And what did they propose next? Not the House of Commons, but 'The Conservative Party in the House of Commons.' They did not propose ' The Conservative Party in the House of Lords.' Perhaps they thought the whole House of Lords was a Con servative party, or else they thought that the Liberal party in the House of Commons was really not worth remem bering, except it may be to wish that it did not exist. These gentlemen do not comprehend our Constitution at all. They do not know, apparently, that it is only because there is something which the people still believe to be in some degree a representative body, and which stands between them and monar chical and aristocratic despotism — that it is only the existence of that House which makes the institution they are so fond of safe and permanent at all — and they are afraid that the five millions somehow or other will get into it. Now, I beg to tell them that the five millions wiU get into it, though they may not get into it all at once ; and perhaps few men desire that they should, for I am opposed myself to great and violent changes, which create needless shocks, and which are accepted, if they are accepted, with great alarm. But I will undertake to say that some portion, a considerable and effective portion, of those five millions will before many years are passed be freely allowed to vote for Members of the House of Commons. It is not the democracy which these gentlemen are always afraid of that is the peril of this country. It was not democracy in 1832 that was the peril. It was the desperate antagonism of the class that then had power to the just claims and rights of the people. And at this mo ment, when they dine and when 1 speak, I tell them, that Conservatism — they give it that name, but it is worthy of a very different name — that Conservatism, be it Tory or be it Whig, is the true national peril, which we have to face. They may dam . the stream, they may keep back the waters, but the volume is ever increasing, and it descends with accelerated force, and the time will come when, in all probability, and to a certainty, if wisdom does not take the place of folly, the waters will burst their banks, and these men, who fancy they are stemming this imaginary appa rition of democracy, will be swept away by the resolute will of a united and determined people. For one moment cast your eyes over the face of Europe. You will find that there are now only two considerable States that have not representative in stitutions — Turkey and Russia; and Russia is making progress in freedom equal at least to the progress of any other State in Europe. Representation is found in Italy, in Austria even, in 342 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. almost all the German States, in the Northern States, in Belgium, Holland, France, Portugal, and Spain. It is found also, as I have said, and as you know, all over the American continent. It is found, also, firmly settled as an institution in Australia. Englishmen, everywhere but at home, are received into the bosom of this great permanent undying institution, this safeguard for national, for human freedom. But here they are slandered, they are insulted, they are reviled, they are shut out. They are invited to half -a hundred ways of amusing themselves ; but if they stand at the hustings or at the poll, and see their richer, brethren come up to, vote, they are not allowed to register their names in favour of prin ciples for which their fathers • before them, and themselves, have sighed in many a bitter hour of disappointment. Now, Sir, I would change all this. I speak out of no hostility to any class, or any institution. That man who proposes to exclude permanently five millions of his countrymen from the right which the Constitution of his country makes sacred in his eyes, I say that is the man that separates English men into two nations, and makes it impossible that we should be wholly or permanently a contented people. I demand, theri, this, which is but the right of our Constitution, that the House . of Commons shall be made freely and fairly to represent the Commons and the people ¦ of the United Kingdom. England has long been famous for the , enjoyment of personal freedom by her people. They are free to think, they are free to speak, they are free to write ; and England has been famed of late years, and is famed now the world over, for the freedom of her industry and the greatness and the freedom of her com merce. I want to know then why it is that her people should not be free to vote. Who is there that will meet me on this platform,, or will stand upon any platform, and will dare to say, in the hearing of an open meeting of his countrymen, that these millions for whom I am now pleading are too de graded, too vicious, and too destructive to be entrusted with the elective fran chise ? I at least will never thus slander my countrymen. I claim for them the right of admission, through their repre sentatives, into the most ancient and the most venerable Parliament which at this hour exists among men ; and when they are thus admitted, and not till then, it may be truly said that England, the august mother of free nations, her self is free. ^S>*@£®Og*5»— REFORM. VI. THE REFORM BILL OF LORD RUSSELL'S ADMINISTRATION. ON THE MOTION FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN THE BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 13, 1866. [On the death of Lord Palmerston, Lord Russell became Prime Minister, and on the meeting of Parliament, a Bill for the improvement of the Representation of the People was introduced by Mr. Gladstone, on behalf of the Government. The Bill did not pass, and the Russell Administration retired from office in June, 1866.] Although in the course of this de bate I have been the subject of much remark, and of not a little that may be fairly termed unusual attack, I beg to assure the House that I have not risen for the purpose of defending myself, since I am ready to leave my course in this House and my political character to the impartial view of Members of the House, and to the just judgment of my countrymen outside the House. Nor have I risen for the purpose of entering into an elaborate defence of the Bill introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think, however, that there has been so much said which is not to the point, that it may be advantageous if I endeavour to explain to the House what I understand the Bill to be — to state some of the grounds on which it appeals to us for support, and to ask the House whether, under the circum stances of this question, and in the ex isting condition of the country, it is the duty of Parliament to permit it to pass into a law. One thing in the Bill is highly satis factory to me — that both in what it does and the manner in which it pro poses to do it, it is distinct, clear, with out any tricks — without semblance of giving something in one clause, and then under a feeling of alarm withdraw ing that something in the clause that follows. I have always been in favour of meeting this ¦ question and dealing with it in such a manner that every person in the countiy who is now an elector, or who is to be included in the Bill, should comprehend that it was a measure, so far as it went, fair and generous to the people whom it was intended to enfranchise. I think I can show reasons — if we 344 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 13, can for a moment get rid of the notion of party combination — why this House should readily, and without hesitation, agree to this Bill. One portion of it will recommend itself, I am quite cer tain, to all Gentlemen who are enthusi astic admirers of the Bill of 1832— and on this point I can confidently ask for the support of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne — that is the por tion of the Bill which is intended to re move all legal obstacles or difficulties by which many persons who were in tended to be enfranchised by the Reform Bill have been up to this time deprived of their votes. The Reform Bill pro posed to give a vote to every occupier of a 10/. house in a borough. It is shown, partly it may be by the wording of the Act, partly by the decisions of judges and courts, that this extension of the franchise was never Complete ; that by the operation of clauses which made it necessary to pay rates, and which made it necessary almost in effect that the occupier himself should pay the rates, many thousands — I know not the number — will have been disfranchised from 1832 up to the very hour at which this Bill shall pass into law. In Scot land there is no such disqualification as that which this Bill proposes to remove, for there they have no rate paying clauses, and they have no system of compounding which would juggle men out of their franchise ; and the object of this Bill is to assimilate our law in this respect to the law of Scotland, and to give to the Reform Act of 1832 the same efficacy which the people expected from it when it passed both Houses of Parliament. I suppose, although Gen tlemen may not admit it by any out ward expression of opinion, they are not against such an improvement of the Reform Act as will give the vote which this part of the Bill is intended to give. The right hon. Member for Calne can certainly not refuse his assent, because if there be one thing except the classical times of antiquity to which he is more devoted than another, it is clearly the Bill of 1832. The next point to which I shall ask the attention of the House is that which the Bill proposes to do in respect to the county franchise. Here I must say, at the risk of saying what is not compli mentary to the Chancellor of the Ex chequer and his colleagues, that I think the Government have shown a remark able feebleness, which lays them open to great blame, not only on the part of the House, but of almost every person in the countiy who has expected a Bill on the subject of Reform. They pro pose to bring the franchise down from a 50/. occupation to one of 14/. The occupation franchise in counties was a measure of your own carrying in 1832. I do not say that to touch it would not have been necessary now, if you had not then disturbed the ancient franchise of the counties; but when the county occupation franchise was fixed at 50/. and the franchise in boroughs at 10/., he must have been a very dull man in deed who could not have foreseen that the county franchise must at some time not remote be greatly reduced. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke encouragingly in that Reform discussion many years ago, when the House carried the third read ing of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey; but from that time to this there has been a good deal more done on this question. The right hon. Gentieman the Member for Buckinghamshire, and his Cabinet — the noble Lord the Mem ber for King's Lynn being very inti mately concerned with the then leader of the House in manufacturing a Reform Bill — had not had much experience, and it was not to be wondered at" that they made mistakes. They brought in their Bill — a Bill containing some good things and some bad things — and among other things proposed a 10/. franchise in counties. They took, how ever, a considerable compensation by attempting to withdraw all freeholders within the limits of boroughs from the county franchise — transferring them to the electoral body within the limits of 1 866. REFORM. VI. 345 boroughs. But that does not in the slightest degree change this fact— that they did with due deliberation come to the opinion that lol. occupiers in coun ties were fit and proper persons to ex ercise the elective franchise. You do not suppose that they proposed to put persons on the county lists of whose fitness they were not well assured, and then endeavoured to compensate for this by their proposal with regard to the freeholders in the boroughs. They be lieved, and believe now, no doubt, that 10Z. was a proper and fitting franchise for the counties in England and Wales ; and I should be glad to. find them, when the House shall be in Committee on this Bill, proposing to reduce the sum of a 14/. franchise to a 10/. one. If they wish to have an easy victory over the Government, and to prove themselves consistent, and to extend the range of the county registration, I and a good many Members in this part of the House will be extremely happy to give them our cordial support ; and I can promise them the support of the right hon. Gentleman behind me (Mr. Lowe), be cause he has fixed his affections on a 10/. rental franchise. If he were to say he approved a 10/. household franchise in boroughs he must do so also in the counties, because we all know that the 10/. householders in counties are generally men in better pecuniary cir cumstances than those of equal rental in boroughs. So far as I have gone, I hope I have persuaded Gentlemen opposite, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne, from any opposition to the Bill of the Government with regard to these two portions of it. I may say further, with respect to this proposition of the Government, that there was one illus tration the learned Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside) might have made in his amusing speech, for however much the country is going to ruin, he can always be amusing in this House — there is one illustration he might have given us. He said that in Ireland they had a 12/. rating franchise for the counties, and that is as near as may be in value to a 14/. rental franchise. Therefore, the proposition of the Government — al though I disapprove it — still has the sanction of the course which has been taken in Ireland, and this, I have heard from Irish Members, is considered a not unsatisfactory condition of the county franchise. But, with the expe rience of a great number of years of this franchise in Ireland, I think the Member for Calne may screw up his courage to support this proposition of the Bill. I now come to. the only, point on which there is any great difference of opinion. I think the world has never shown an instance of a legislative as sembly such, as this making a great disturbance among themselves, exciting themselves, getting into a violent pas sion, pouring out cataracts of declama tion like those we heard last night, and all upon the simple question whether the franchise in boroughs shall remain as now at 10/. or shall be fixed for a time at Jl. Hon. Gentlemen opposite appear to be surprised at the frankness with which I speak. The head of the present Government was laughed at for years because he spoke of finality in connection with the Bill of 1832. I should be very happy if it should so happen, as the right hon. Gentleman has suggested in his fervid imagination, that the working classes would in great numbers surmount the barrier of ?/., and that ultimately it should be even equal to. a household suffrage in the country. But does any Gentleman op posite believe that he is carrying a Bill — did any Gentleman sitting in this House ever vote upon any measure of arrangement and organisation like this, and confidently assure himself that the measure should be final? He must have a very poor notion of what our children will be if he thinks them less competent to decide such questions for themselves than we are at present to decide them. Therefore do not think that because I use the phrase 'for a time,' I am not of opinion that this Bill, 346 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 1 MARCH 13, if it be earned, will in all probability put an end to Bills having reference to the suffrage — for such portion of time, at least, as this Bill will be found to meet the views of the intelligent — [loud laughter and cheers] — allow me to finish the sentence — of the intelligent popula tion of this country. The Bill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes, in addition to the 7/. franchise, what he calls a lodger franchise. The Member for Bucking hamshire in his Bill proposed something of the same kind, but with a 20/. quali fication, while the present Bill proposes a 1 o/. qualification — 1 o/. being very nearly the same for a holding of this kind as 7/. would be for a house. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite pro posed provisions in his measure which would be extremely difficult, and I think would lead to great perplexity. I have no doubt that the proposition now made by the Government is simpler than his, and likely to be carried out with less difficulty and more satisfaction to that class of persons in this metro polis who are chiefly interested in this part of the Bill. With regard to the 7/. franchise, let us examine it for one moment. Somebody has said, and many persons have written, that this. Bill is my Bill — that the Government made this Bill at my recommendation. [ ' Hear.'] I thought somebody would say this. I have not been able to find a point of the Bill which I have recommended. I never was in favour of a 61. franchise, and I should never have proposed 1 it. I be lieve in a household franchise for the boroughs of this country. But when I found a powerful Government like the last — and it was not as honest as it was powerful — proposing a 61. franchise, with the expectation that it would carry it, I was not to stand in the way of a considerable enfranchisement of the people merely because I had an idea that household suffrage would be better. A 7/. franchise is a proposition I have never said one syllable in favour of, and it never entered into my mind that the Government would split hairs in this fashion, and would leave the 61. fran? chise, their own former proposition, and which nearly everybody in the country who has asked for a Reform Bill has expressed himself ready to accept, and would offer the House a 7/. franchise. But here it is offered, and unfortunately, beggars in the House • of Commons, like beggars outside of it, cannot be choosers, and we are -sometimes in a position to take only what is given. When the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was brought in, a veiy remarkable thing happened. Two eminent Members of the Government seceded from it, and took their seats on the third bench behind, and I think I see one of them sitting there at this moment. They both made what we call a personal explanation to the House, and the explanation was that they differed from their colleagues on this question of the suffrage. They did not approve that the suffrage in counties should be brought down to the rate of the boroughs, and that the suffrage in the boroughs should be con tinued at the same rate which was fixed at the time of the Reform Act. I am not sure whether these right hon. Gen tlemen coincide in the opinion that the county franchise should be brought down to 10/. I think the right hon. Gentlemen expressed some dissent — at least they were of opinion that the franchise in the boroughs ought to be reduced; and I know the Member for Oxfordshire, in the words which have often been quoted since, expressed him self in favour of establishing a borough franchise at 8/. Now when the Go vernment have been splitting hairs with regard to 61. and 7/.,, I hope the right hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House will not split hairs between 8/. and 7/.,! because surely after the discus sion this question has undergone — after the mode and manner the House has been brought into difficulty by past transactions — after the great expecta tions which have been raised through out the country, I think it would show very ill statesmanship on the part of i866. REFORM. VI. 347 those right hon. Gentlemen and a mere obedience to the cause of party — it would hardly be becoming in them — if they were not willing to make the small concession of i/. in answer to the concession of i/. which I am willing or forced to make, and join with me in giving at least a friendly if not an enthusiastic support to the Bill of the Government. And, after all, this 3/., what is it? The right hon. Gentleman behind me has conjured up a frightful apparition. The 10/. is the salvation of the countiy. For thirty-four years its operation has been such as to extort from him un limited approval. I do not know whether he will think 9/. perilous or 8/. in any degree of doubtful utility, but 7/. he considers to be actually destructive to the interests of the coun try ; and he has shown moreover that it would destroy the connection be tween the Executive Government and the House — that it would add greatly to all the evils which are supposed to exist in connection with the present Bill, without any of its advantages; in fact, I know not whether a more gloomy, discouraging, and appalling picture of the future of the House and the country was ever ' drawn by any Member of the House. And all the foundation of these horrors is that it is proposed to reduce the franchise in the boroughs by 1/. lower than was re commended by the Member for Oxford shire and by his colleague the Member for the University of Cambridge. Now, I appeal to Gentlemen opposite whether they will allow themselves, considering the position of this question, to make it impossible that the question of the suffrage should be got out of our way during this present session of Parlia ment. If they do make it impossible — I am not much given to prophesy, but I venture to predict that there are many on those benches now who will live to regret the course they are about to take. There is one other proposition — it is made in this Bill— which I hope the House will not listen to for a moment, and that is: the Savings-bank franchise. I think the Member for Buckingham shire had something like it — perhaps the very same thing — in his Bill. I disapproved of it then. I have no ob jection to enfranchise those who may be enfranchised by it ; but I think it is the very worst of all the fancy fran chises ever proposed. It will be unequal to the last degree, and it will be, I be lieve, the source of every kind of fraud. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wick, who, I think, in speaking of it said he did not see why the investment of 50/. — the saving- of it in a Savings-bank — should give a man a higher social and political position than the investment or saving of an equal sum in any other description of property where the investment could be fairly ascertained. I object altogether to giving the franchise to one man and shutting it out from another — that second man, it may be, being far more heroic than the other. For example, a man may have to provide a humble equipment for a daughter's marriage, a small sum for a son's apprenticeship — something may be taken ¦ out of his earnings for the education of his chil dren, he may have under his roof an aged parent, and he may be performing to that parent the most sacred and most holy of duties, and these may cause him to withdraw 5/. or 10/. from his little fund in- the Savings-bank, or may pre vent his having any fund there at all, and the law steps in, and for doing so much, which in every rank of life is so honourable and so exemplary, his name is to be erased from the electoral list of the town in which he lives. I pro test against this Savings-bank franchise. I think also it would be liable to great fraud, because three or four members of a family may invest in a Savings-bank in one name and so give to that one person a vote. I do not in the least object to any one person having a vote, but I do object to giving it under a system which,' altogether apart from the general processes of our enfran chisement, is liable to the utmost in- SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH I3, equality, and to a species of fraud which cannot be prevented. Now I have gone through the Bill in its main provisions, and I would ask the House what they think of it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us — in fact, we well know — that we have in England and Wales about five and a half millions of men. Under this Bill he further tells us we should have 900,000 electors. [A Voice from the Treasury Benches: '1,300,000.'] But not 1,300,000 when the double qualifi cations are taken off. Whatever that be, it will place within the franchise perhaps a little more than one in five, leaving out four millions of grown men in England and Wales who will still not have the franchise. Of those he says there will be 330,000 working-men. This is a very — as I am quite confident whenever the matter is fairly looked into will be found out — exaggerated estimate. The right hon. Gentleman included 60,000 who now live in 10/. houses besides those referred to in the Blue Books. And more than that, he included every man between 10/. and 7/., although the experience of every one tells us that is not correct ; and as to all these working-men brought for ward in these Blue Books, except the Members for Coventry, I will undertake to say that there is scarcely a single Member of the House, looking to his own canvass and his own constituency, who is not prepared to say that the esti mate is a delusion and a snare. I should only be too glad if it could be honestly ascertained that so many working-men would be placed upon the register ; at least I think, it would-, do something towards confirming hon. Gentlemen in the view they entertain that the conduct of so many of those men as possess the franchise has hither to been most exemplary in their exercise of it. Now, I appeal to. hon. Gentle men — I am very earnest in my wishes upon this question, because, notwith standing the unkind allusion and impu tation thrown upon me some time ago by a right hon. Gentleman on this side of the House, there is nobody who has a greater interest than I have, in a cer tain sense, in a fair and early settlement of this question. I have had as much to do with it as any one, I think, in discussing it publicly out of the House and in the House. I have discussed it frankly, and whatever hon. Gentlemen may think to the contrary, I never spoke on any question in which 1 took a greater interest, or with a deeper con viction that I was serving the true in- ' terests of their class as well as those of my countrymen at large. I do not know whether I can appeal to certain Members of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne has shown that nearly everything the Bill proposes is really that which is bound up in some shape with the Bill of 1832, or with the propositions in which he has been concerned. I have got here — it is really curious how things drop into your hands when you want them — here is a paper, the Norfolk News, of the year 1859, and I have certain extracts which I have taken from the paper. These are extracts from election addresses. The first is from the election address of Lord Pal merston, who said there must be a Bill to alter the law regulating the repre sentation of the people in Parliament. Then Lord John RusseU said we should have to consider the great question of the amendment of the representation of the people in Parliament. Sir George Grey said that at the earliest period consistent with duty, the Government would be prepared to deal with the ques tion of Parliamentary Reform. Then there were similar extracts from the speeches of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, from the speeches of the Attorney-General of that day, and of the Solicitor-General. There is then an extract headed, ' Right Hon. Robert Lowe, Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Educa tion.' And what does he say in 1859, before the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was discharged from the service of the House and of i866. REFORM. VI. 349 the country? The Right Hon. Robert Lowe says : — ' It will be the duty of the Government to prepare a measure of Reform, jind I have every confidence that it will be one which if not fully satisfying menf of ex treme opinions, will be acceptable to the great body of the people.' ) I think the right hon. GentleSnan has a veiy short memory, or else /he trifles with diis House. Is it conceivable that a man who wrote that in Mis election address in 1859 should stalnd up to night and deliver such a spleech as we have heard from him for aii hour and a half? I am afraid, Sir J that when under these circumstances j'men change their opinions after they ave fifty years of age, there is not much[ expectation of turning them back agaiii. I feel that I could not with much home appeal to the right hon. Member foit Calne, or to his colleague the right hoa. Member for Stroud ; I do not know /that I should appeal to the noble Lorfl the Member for Haddington (Lord j Elcho), who, with the exception of the- hon. Member for Salisbury, is the only Member at this side of the House vvho cheers the sentiments of either of the right hon. Gentlemen. 1 What is the reason, I (ask, that Gen tlemen who have been lders of office take this course with regard to the Bill of the Government ? I [will not deal in any insinuations, but il will say that, from Gentlemen who hihve held office, but who happen to ha-Are been left out of what may be called the daily minis trations, we have a rij rht to expect a very minute account of the reasons why they change their opinions before we can turn round and chfenge with them. These are the Gentlemen who all at once start up as the great teachers of statesmanship to the / House and the countiy. Are they Jwhat the right hon. Baronet the Memlber for Droitwich spoke of in the recesfcs — are they the foremost statesmen in tthe country? and if so, is there to be a Ibid for them to take the place of Gentlemen who have not much succeeded as statesmen when in office ? In office these right hon. Gentlemen are as docile as any other Gentlemen in office, but I fear, notwith standing the ideas some people have of my influence with Earl Russell, that I am not able to offer them any argu- ments on his part that will tell upon them. I do not object for a moment to a Member of this House being fond of office. The Chancellor of the Ex chequer probably lives much more happily in office than he would live if he were out of it, though I do not think he will live quite so long. I do not complain of men who are fond of office, though I could never compre hend the reason they like it so much. If I may parody, or if I may make an alteration in a line or two of one of the most beautiful poems in our language, I might ask — ' For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, That pleasing, anxious office e'er re signed, Left the warm precincts of the Treasury, Nor -cast one last, long, lingering look behind.' What I complain of is this, that when place recedes into the somewhat dim past, that which in office was deemed patriotism vanishes with it; and we have one howl of despair from these right hon. Gentiemen because it is proposed to diminish the franchise in boroughs from 10/. to 7/., and to add by so small a proposition as that some thing to the freedom of the people of this country. The right hon. Gentleman below me (Mr. Horsman) said a little against the Government and a little against the Bill, but had last night a field night for an attack upon so humble an individual as I am. The right hon. Gentleman is the first of the new party who has ex pressed his great grief, who has retired into what may be called his political cave of Adullam, and he has called about him every one that was in distress and every one that was discontented. The right hon. Gentleman has been 35° SPEECHES QF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 13, anxious to form a party in this House. There is scarcely any one on this side of the House who is able to address the House with effect or to take much part in our debates, whom he has not tried to bring over to his party or cabal ; and at last the right hon.. Gentleman has succeeded in hooking the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne. I know there was an opinion expressed many years ago by a Member of the Treasury bench and of the Cabinet, that two men would make a party. When a party is formed of two men so amiable — so discreet — as the two right hon. Gentlemen, we may hope to see for the first time in Parliament a party perfectly harmonious and distinguished by mutual and unbroken trust. But there is one difficulty which it is impossible to re move. This party of two reminds me of the Scotch terrier, which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of it. The right hon. Member for Calne told us that he had some peculiar election experiences. There are men who make discord wherever they appear. The right hon. Gentleman on going down to Kidderminster got into some unpleasing altercation with somebody, and it ended with his having his head broken. But I am happy to say, and the House will bear witness, that with regard to its power, that head is pro bably as strong now as before he took his leave of Kidderminster and went to Calne — a village in the West of England. The right hon. Gentleman found on the list of electors at Calne, one hundred and seventy-four names, of whom, ac cording to the Blue Book, about seven were working-men. I suppose three or four of them were probably keepers of shops, and some of those whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer I think improperly included in his list. When the right hon. Member went down there he found a tumult even more aggravated than at Kidderminster. They did not break his head, but they did something that in the eye . of the law was much I I worse, for they shut up the police in the Town Hall, and the little mob of this little place had the whole game to themselves. The right hon. Gentleman told us of the polypus, which takes its colour from the rock on which it lives, and he\said that some hon. Members take thifeir colours from their consti tuencies.'. The constituency which the right hon( Gentleman represents consists of one hundred and seventy-four men, seven of ^hom are working-men; but the real constituent of the right hon. Gentleman! is a Member of the other House of Parliament, and he could send in his butlep; or his groom, instead of the right hojn. Gentleman, to represent the borough!.. I think in one sense — regarding the right hon. Gentleman as an intellectual gladiator in this House. — we are muc-.h indebted to the Marquis of Lansdown'e that he did not do that. And now, .Sir, I said that I wanted to explain thi- particulars of this Bill, and to appeal to the good sense and patriotism of lion. Gentlemen opposite. I ask them noti to take that disparaging -view of their/ countrymen which has been presentee! to them by the right hon. Member !for Cable and the hon. Member for Salisbury, who — I presume from their residence at the antipodes — seem to take i Botany Bay impression, and a Botany Bay view, of the character of the great biilk of their countrymen. The right hon.i Gentleman some nights ago, when I wips not here, said that I, even in the master of the cattle plague, set class against class. ['Hear, hear!' from the Opposition benches, and laughter.] The] hon. Gentlemen op posite, who froin the ease with which they are amusecjl must be a most ami able party, laugh at this observation. I ask any man; in this House, is it possible to do a thing more perilous than that which) is done by the right hon. Gentleman and his Australian col league the hon. ijlember for Salisbury — namely, to makje it appear that there is a gulf that shall not be passed by legislation between the highest and most powerful j and a portion of the i866. REFORM. VI. 35i middle classes, and the great body of the working-people who are really the heart of this great nation ? The right hon. Gentleman tells us that by-and-by, if everybody will wait long enough, everybody will get over this barrier and be inside the franchise. But that is no great consolation, because he said that by the Bill of the Govern ment we, or our children, shall be eaten up at some future time. Would it not be infinitely better to show our trust in the people now ? Of all the follies and crimes which Govemments commit, that of a constant distrust of their subjects, of their citizens, of their country, is about the wildest and most foolish. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud and somebody else who followed him tell us that the people are very indif ferent about this matter. I think I just caught the Member for Salisbury in the hubbub of the House as he rose to speak, making an observation about the number of petitions ; and the rijjjht hon. Gentleman the Member for Cajlne said he thought their number was riot more than four. But how many .petitions were there previous to 1831 ? : Bear in mind that Lord John Russell had for some time discontinued bringing for ward his motion for Parliamentary Reform. In 1821 one petition was presented to the House in : favour of Parliamentary Reform. In 1822 there were twelve, in 1823 there were twenty- nine ; in the six years that passed between 1824 and 1829 there was not a single petition presented to this House in favour of Parliamentary (Reform; and in 1830 there were fourteen petitions- ten more than those wijth which the right hon. Gentleman made himself merry to-night. And what took place in 1831-2 ? This, — some of you were fleeing for your lives in the midst of a storm which you had not foreseen, but which was as inevitable as any storm that arises in the heavens. It was an accident that brought it about — the French Revolution. Well, there are always accidents. A great portion of the things that happem in our lives, so far as we can judge, have the ap pearance of accidents. But with the accident there was material for a con flagration, and a conflagration arose. I recollect that the late Francis Place and two or three others went to the Duke of Wellington as a deputation when he took office after the fall of Lord Grey's Government, and that they remonstrated with the Duke. He was not a man that liked remonstrances very much, but they told him what was going on, how dissatisfied the people were, and how perilous they thought the course of the Government in op posing Reform. And what did the Duke say ? He was standing wanning himself at the fire. He said to these gentlemen, ' You have got heads on your shoulders, and I would advise you to keep them there.' Two or three days afterwards the Duke of Wellington was driven from office. The popular feeling in the country and in the metro polis was such that this great soldier that knew no fear was obliged to resign, and Lord Grey was permitted to come back, and the Reform Bill was eventu ally carried. Now I ask hon. Gentlemen if they think any accident will ever happen again. That accident was in Paris. But in 1848, only eighteen years after wards, there was another accident in Paris, which was followed by a suc cession of accidents in other parts of Europe. I recollect at the time a noble Lord who was then a Member of this House was greatly alarmed. He came to me from that side of the House, and assured me that he had always been in favour of a great ex tension of the suffrage. I believe that he was not quite sure that I should not soon be a member of a Provisional Government. I ask hon. Gentlemen whether it is not better to accept a measure so moderate, and if you like, as may be said by many in the countiy, so inadequate, but still to some extent so good? Is it not better to accept this measure, and show your confidence in the people, than to take the advice 352 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. of the Member for Calne — the most revolutionary advice that was ever given in this House — and shut your doors against five millions of people, and tell them that unless they can scramble over this 10Z. barrier none of them shall ever find a direct representation in thisHouse? The Member for Stroud talked loudly last night about constitutional rights and constitutional principles. But who was it that made the present constitution of England more than any other men in our history? Surely the men of the first and second Parliaments in the reign of Charles the First. Is it not in the very journals of your House ? The Clerk of the House could easily find and read to you the resolutions of the House, that wherever there is not some direct inter diction or contradiction of it, the ancient and common franchise of the people of this country in the towns is the house- holding franchise. And do you mean to tell me that Lord Somers, who was himself a great authority, and to a large extent one of the builders of our exist ing Constitution, was wrong when he said that though no man by birth had any right to office, yet that by birth he had a right to vote, and that the pos session of a vote was the only trae security which an Englishman had for the protection of his Ufe and property ? I am not stating that as my opinion, I am giving you the opinion of one of the greatest men in the Parliamentary annals of this nation, and therefore I say you will not act constitutionally or wisely if you put any obstacle in the path of a Bill that is so moderate as this, and that may give great satisfaction to vast multitudes of the people. If this Bill be rejected you will show that you are against all Reform, you will show that you have no confidence whatever even in that portion of the population which lives in houses be tween 10Z. and 7/. rental. And if you pass this Bill you will show that you are not cut off altogether from sympathy with multitudes of your fellow-country men. I say there is peril in the present state of things. You have a population divorced almost entirely from the land, and shut out from the possession of the franchise. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton touched upon the question of emigration. The right hon. Gentle man the Member for Calne spoke of the intelligence of the people in this way— of their combinations and associations. We all know that they are reading, debating, thinking, and combining, and they know that in all our colonies, and in the United States, the position of their class is very different. I believe that if you do not moderate your tone and your views with regard to the great bulk of the working classes, you will find your country gradually weakened by a constantly increasing emigration, or youiwill find some accident happen ing, wrien you wiU have something to do morje than you are asked to do to night, tinder the threat, and it may be under thte infliction, of violence. Now, Sir, I said at the beginning that I did not rise to defend this Bill. I rose for the ptarpose of explaining it. It is not a Bill! which, if I had been consulted by its trainers, I should have recom mended. If I had been a Minister it is not a Bill kvliich I should have consented to presentA to the House. I think it is not adequate to the occasion, and that its concessions are not sufficient. But I know th\e difficulties under which Ministries labour, and I know the dis inclination off Parliament to do much in the direction! of this question. I shall give it my sujpport because, as far as it goes, it is a simple and honest measure, and because I believe, if it becomes law, it will give m are solidity and duration to everything (that is good in the Con stitution, and b 3 everything that is noble in the characte r of the people of these realms. REFORM VII. THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL. THE SECOND READING. -DEBATE ON HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 23, 1866, From Hansard. Before I address myself to the ques tion which is before the House, there are two matters of a personal character which I wish to dispose of. The right hon. Member for Calne, on the first night of this debate, made a complaint to the House that, in a speech out of this House, I had imputed to him, or quoted as from him, words which he had not uttered. The right hon. Gen tleman was quite right to make that complaint, if he thought it worth while to make it, because there is no doubt — and I am sorry it so happened — that some three or four words which he had not spoken in that connection were added to the passage which he had spoken. I regret the inaccuracy very much. I have the satisfaction, how ever, of knowing or believing that I did the right hon. Gentleman no sub stantial injustice. The other point refers to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley). He re torted on me a charge of conspiracy with reference to two divisions which took place some years ago in this House, one on the China War, and the other on the Conspiracy Bill. In neither of these cases did the mover of the reso lution obtain a seconder from the op posite side of the House. But with regard to the first case, that of the China War, I was not in Parliament during that session. I was in bad health, out of the country; and the first thing I knew of it was from read ing an account of what had taken place in this House in a public news-room in the city of Rome. With regard to the other case, that of the Conspiracy Bill, Members who were then in the House will recollect that on the first division, on the first reading of the Bill, nearly 100 Members — I think that was the exact number, I am not sure — or 99, voted in the division against the intro duction or first reading of the Bill, in cluding Lord John Russell, the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Gibson), myself, and many others. The noble Lord's friends warmly welcomed and supported that Bill. Before the second reading came on, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade gave notice of a resolution, which was carried by the House ; the noble Lord 23 354 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, with several of his friends, departing altogether from their votes on the first reading, turned completely round upon their own policy, supported my right hon. Friend, went into the same lobby with him, and made a majority against the Government of Lord Palmerston. If there was any conspiracy then, it was owing to the other side of the House ; and if it was a dirty conspiracy, the dirt was imported into it by the noble Lord and his friends. Now, these are inac curacies which may occur in debate, but I think it was necessary to make an apology to the right hon. Gentle man, and to explain the charge which the noble Lord had inadvertently brought against me. I come now to the question before the House, and the resolution which has been moved by the Member for Chester. Whatever are the words in which a resolution or design is wrapped up in this House, the true meaning of it generally comes out during the de bate ; but the noble Lord the Member for Chester did not in the slightest de gree leave us in difficulty with respect to his view ; and there can be nothing more clear than this — I do not in the slightest degree blame him for it — he has a perfect right to his opinion — that he stands as the principal opponent of this measure, on the ground either that he is opposed to all Reform, or to such an extension of the franchise as the Government propose in this Bill ; and I presume, if the truth were known, and judging from his speech, that if the Government would lay on the table of the House the Seats Bill, which may be as extensive with respect to that part of the subject as this measure of the franchise is on another part, it would meet with the strenuous opposition of the noble Lord. Thus the Bill that is not before us is made an excuse and weapon for destroying the Bill that is before us. That, I think, as far as I can judge, is a fair statement of the position of the noble Lord ; but when the Seats Bill is laid on the table of the House we shall have an opportunity of knowing what is the course which the noble Lord will take upon it. I come now to the speech made by the Member for King's Lynn, in second ing the amendment. His speech was much more ingenious, and it was much less candid ; it was much less straight forward, but it lands us in the same position ; and the noble Lord during his speech, twice at least, if not oftener, used the words the ' balance of power ' in reference to the representation of the people in this House. We have done now pretty much with the balance of power on the Continent of Europe. I hope the time will come when we shall have no such phrase as the ' balance of power' in this House. Sir, I think that this House should be a fair representation of- the people of this countiy, and though it may not be desirable, and even if desirable it may not be attainable, that all persons should vote, yet, far short of that, I am per suaded that the representation maybe so arranged that every person of every class will feel that his interests are fairly represented, and will be fairly consulted by the House. But the noble Lord is afflicted with a species of terror, or perhaps I should rather call it a feeling of no confidence, such as I have hardly ever seen before in this House. He has no confidence in the Govern ment. That I have very often seen, and I have seen him in a Government in which the majority of the House had no confidence ; but he has no confidence in the House. First of all the Govern ment, through the Prime Minister and through the Chancellor of the Exche quer, have given the most distinct pro mise with regard to the Bill for the re-arrangement of seats ; but the noble Lord has no confidence in that promise. The noble Lord has no confidence in the House, because if this Franchise Bid should pass, he thinks the House might do something very unwise in the matter of the Seats Bill. He has no confidence in the people, because the object of this Bill is to admit them to the franchise ; and he has special terror i866. REFORM. VII. 355 of what might happen if the Franchise Bill should pass and the Seats Bill fail, and we should all be sent back to en larged constituencies to be returned to a future Parliament. The noble Lord .must know that, whatever be the re arrangements of seats, it must lead to greater popular power in the House ; and that whatever be the extension of the franchise, it must lead to the same result ; and we all know that henceforth the Parliament which shall be elected on an extended franchise, or after a re distribution of seats, will be a Parlia ment of full authority in the country — that it will have power still further to extend the franchise, and still further to alter the distribution of seats, and to conduct all matters connected with the legislation of the Empire. And there fore the noble Lord, who was in such extraordinary tremor with regard to what may happen if this Bill pass or if the other fail, appears to me to present the most singular exhibition of political anxiety I have ever seen. I thought that when the noble Lord concluded his speech, everything in it that was true was unimportant, and everything that seemed to be the least important was not true. But there is one thing important, and that is the opposition of the noble Lord to this Bill ; and I hope that he and his col league in proposing this resolution will forgive me if I say that I think it is a perilous thing when the heirs of two of the most ancient and the most wealthy and powerful of the houses of the Eng lish nobility oppose themselves to this moderate and just Bill, and have set themselves by a coalition in this House to drive Lord Russell from power — for this, and this only, offence — that he wields the authority of his great office to extend in what I believe to be a moderate and conservative degree the franchises of his countrymen. The noble Lord the Member for Chester blames the Government be cause it took advice from this end of this side of the House [below the gang way of the Ministerial side], and did not confine itself to the advice of power ful persons of the Whig party. I should think that a measure which is sup ported by the House of Bedford, by the House of Devonshire, that has among its supporters the Howards, the Sutherlands, the Duke of Somerset, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Clarendon, Lord Granville, Lord Stanley the Postmaster- General, and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department — I think a measure that is supported by the Peers that I have mentioned cannot be said to be intro duced to this House without some con sultation with the Whig party. Now, if the noble Lord will allow me in a perfectly friendly manner to give him a little advice, I will do it in one sen tence. The course that he is taking is a course which tends to separate im portant persons of the Whig party from the Liberal and popular party in this House and in the country, and if he should succeed in dissevering the most intelligent of the Whig nobility from the great popular party in the countiy, if he should transfer them to the other side, and put all the dukes and the nobles on one side of Parliament, and the popular party on the other — if the noble Lord knows anything whatever of history, he will know this, — that when the great popular party of a countiy are fighting by themselves against the nobles of a country, what ever their virtues and whatever their power — speaking of many of them — you may rely upon it that the popular party will win, and the nobles will go down. The noble Lord and many hon. Members of the House during this de bate have referred to the supposed influence I have had as to the mode in which this question has been brought before Parliament. Seven years ago, just about the time when the Govern ment of Lord Derby was thrown out, in an accidental or incidental conver sation with Lord Russell, I suggested to him that whenever this question was brought again before Parliament, the 23- 356 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, proper course to take was to introduce the Franchise Bill by itself. From i860 until this hour I have only had one interview — a very short interview — and only one conversation of a political character with Lord Russell, and until he mentioned the matter at the meeting of his supporters the other day in Downing-street, I must confess to the House that I was totally in ignorance of the fact that the course of the Go vernment in this matter had been in any degree influenced by anything I have said. It was at a meeting at Rochdale in January last that I ad vised not only the Government to take this course, but that I advised all per sons who were in favour of Reform in the kingdom to consider the question and to support this course if it should be taken by the Government. I will tell the House with the most complete candour and fairness what were the reasons which led me to give this ad vice. I will assume that the House is in favour of Reform. I know what a stretch of imagination is necessary in order to come to that conclusion. But as I am speaking not only to Gentle men in this House, but to some who are outside this House, I shall treat the question just as if we were all in favour of some measure of Reform, but differed a little as to the mode and extent. When I suggested to Earl Russell six years ago that he should bring in a Franchise Bill first, he replied that if he did so the opponents of Reform would make use of that plan of action to op pose the Government altogether. They would submit a resolution to the House, in all probability, to the effect that they will not proceed with any measure to extend the franchise till they see be fore them everything that the Govern ment has to propose on the subject of Reform. The noble Lord knows per- fecdy well the tactics of hon. Gentle men opposite, but, notwithstanding that knowledge, he has thought it his duty to introduce the Franchise Bill first, and ask the House to take the question of the redistribution of seats at a later period. Now let us consider why he should do that. If you will carry back your recollection to the year 1848, when a resolution was proposed by Mr. Hume, and come down step by step from that period until the occasion of the intro duction of the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds last year, you will see that the great question, so far as it is to be regarded as a great popu lar question, and as it was discussed at public meetings, has all along been much more a question of the franchise than of the seats. The pledges of Go vernments and of Parliament have been not so much pledges to the middle classes that their share of political power should be rendered more equal by a re distribution of seats, but more distinctly and fudy they have been pledged to the working classes, which are now ex cluded, that they should at some early day be admitted in some fair numbers to the franchise. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. Mill), and I think all within this House will agree, that apart from any effect in re spect to the choice of Members which you may hope to produce by any mea sure for the extension of the franchise, it is a thing desirable in the highest de gree that there should be an extension of the franchise so far that the working- people might feel that they were not purposely excluded. What I want is to give the sense of justice to a great class now labouring under a sense of long- continued injustice. And that is essen tial to be done, although that might not change the seat of any Member in this House, and although the distribution were as equal as it can be made, and there were no other Reform necessary but on this single measure of the fran chise. The House will see that there is an essential difference between the two questions. The extension of the franchise affects a peculiar portion of the population, and the redistribution of seats does not; it affects all — the higher, the middle, and the lower classes 1 866. REFORM. VII. 357 (as to> a portion of them) alike. It is not a class question, and therefore is not pressed with the same force and resolution, as a great measure of justice, which the question of the franchise has received. An hon. Gentleman who once sat on the other side is of opinion that when you come to consider the redistribution of the seats you will find that a larger amount of power ought to be given to the counties. No doubt the counties ought to receive more Members, and so ought some of the largest boroughs, and some new boroughs ought to be created. AU that is necessary for the fair repre sentation of all classes, but not as mat ter of justice to any special and peculiar class. The other matter comes before us with a claim far more pressing. I will not say far more righteous, but certainly far more urgent. Then an other reason why this course should be adopted is one which any Member of die Government would see at once ; and as a supporter of the Government I will take the liberty of stating it. It is very much more simple than if this measure were mixed up with another great question. We all know perfectly well whether in our view it is desirable to reduce the franchise or not, from 10Z. to 8/. or to 7/. We can form an opinion on that point; and it does not matter for that purpose whether there is any redistribution of seats or not I could frame a measure, and so could the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buck inghamshire, which would give a vote to every man in the kingdom, and yet the redistribution of seats could be so made that the representation should be infinitely worse than it is at present. When you have argued the question of the suffrage and settled it, you stand and will stand free to deal with the question of the redistribution of seats. And if you think to juggle the public by giving the suffrage with the one hand and with the other preventing the fair represen tation of the people by an unjust redis tribution, you will not be reforming the constitution of this House, but you will be making the people more dissatisfied with Parliament than they have been in past times. Another reason why I think the Go vernment were justified in the course which they have taken, is that they did not wish to combine the various classes of opponents to the different branches of Reform into an opposition of the ex tension of the franchise. They thought that a Bill which would get rid of ten, twenty, thirty, or forty seats, would be a matter of great difficulty to those Members who represented seats that would be disfranchised by such a Bill. But. yet they felt they might fairly ask the aid of the Members for the small boroughs to . do justice to the excluded class, and open the franchise fully and fairly to the people. I have heard a mmour that amongst those who are likely to -vote upon the amendment of the Member for Chester, with only one exception, there will not be a single representative of any small boroughs which are likely to be disfranchised by the Bill which the Government have promised to lay upon the table. There fore, the Members for the small bo roughs, wherever they sit, and whosoever they are on this- side of the House, have not shown any hostility to an extension of the franchise, whatever may be their course when the Distribution of Seats Bill makes its appearance on the table. I shall have to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman opposite on a point to which I am about to address myself. I think that a Franchise Bill which does not adjust this question for a period at least as long as the Bill of 1832 settled the question of Reform, is a Franchise Bill which it is not desirable for this House to consent to. I think, further, that a Distribution of Seats Bill which will not settle that question as long as the Franchise Bill will settle the ques tion of franchise, is not a desirable Bill for this House to pass. It seems to me that after you have settled the franchise and come to discuss the question of seats, Parliament and the public direct ing its eye to that one question, it would 358 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, be much more likely that the question of seats eould be settled so far, that for thirty, and it may be for fifty, years no further change would be required. I believe that if Parliament were honestly disposed to amend the representation, they could do it infinitely better, more solidly, more satisfactorily to the people, with greater duration to our legislation, by taking the course proposed by the Government, than by taking that pro posed by the amendment of the Member for Chester or the course proposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite, which, I sup pose, is to get rid of this Bill and the Government by the same vote. I be lieve that the argument which I have laid before the House — not so clearly as I could have wished — had the effect of inducing a great number of Reform ers in the country to approve of the course which the Government has taken ; and I believe now, that if I were ad dressing the hon. Gentlemen opposite as friends of Reform, and if they were its friends, that argument would be con clusive. But if they are not friends of Reform, of course I must content my self with saying what I have to say, and with leaving it to make a very small impression upon understandings not prepared, I fear, to receive the truth in this matter. I said I must quote the right hon. Gentleman that I see opposite me. My own honest opinion is that the course which has been pursued by the Govern ment is one of true Conservatism. I think nothing can be less Conservative than that Parliament should have these questions of representation, questions affecting the basis of power, discussed in this House during every session, and discussed throughout the coun try during every Parliamentary recess. There were some striking things said in this House on the 1st of March in the year 1859, when two right hon. Gentlemen (Mr. Henley and Mr. Walpole) who sit opposite withdrew from the Government of Lord Derby and explained to the House the grounds of that withdrawal. The Member for Oxfordshire made use of these obser vations : — ' If one thing can be more destructive to our Constitution than another it will be to have a Reform Bill every few years ; and that will be the case if you cannot settle your system upon such grounds that you can reasonably hope that it will stand, I do not say for a long time — finality is out of the question — but for a decent num ber of years. If you cannot do that, you will lay the foundation for revolution.' The foundation for revolution in almost every country, unless history lies dread fully, has been laid by those who have pretended to 'be specially Conservative. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I say there never was a sentence uttered in this House of more Undoubted wis dom than that which he spoke on that occasion. I should like to ask the House why it is that we are now in volved in this question of Reform. [De risive- cries from the Opposition.] Yes, I will answer hon. Gentlemen imme diately. • The reason is this — because there is a feeling universal throughout the country that the whole number of electors is much too small to afford a satisfactory representation of the people, and that the largest class in the country,' that class which makes the nation, is specially excluded. I shall show hon. Gentlemen opposite that this is so by referring to a Bill of their own leaders and of their own Ministry. It was on the twenty-eighth of February, 1859, that the Member for Buckinghamshire stood up at this table to propose a Reform Bill on behalf of the Conservative party, of which he is the leader in this House. He quoted on that occasion no less than three Queen's speeches, and he told us that three Prime Ministers had stated dis tinctly that it was necessary to do some thing on this question. And that there may be no mistake, for there is a pecu liarity in the way the right hon. Gentle man has put it, I will read to you the question he asked of the House. After descanting on the previous attempts, 1 866. REFOR M. VII. 359 which every Minister thinks it necessary to do — after quoting three Queen's speeches — he says : — ' Were you to allow this question, which the Sovereign had three times announced was one that ought to be dealt with, which three Prime Ministers, among the most skilful and authoritative of our statesmen, have declared it was their intention to deal with, to remain in abeyance ? ' The answer he would give of course is — No; we could not let it remain in abeyance. But since then there have been three other Royal speeches in which the same thing has been said with increased emphasis, and three other Prime Minis ters have declared their intention to deal with it. What is the subject to which the right hon. Gentleman refers when he puts in this form the inquiry ' Are you to allow this question to remain in abeyance?' I maintain that it is the question of the suffrage — the question of the franchise. What did the right hon. Gentleman deal with? He gave, according to his own statement, a Fran chise Bill of the largest proportions — so largely proportioned that it dwarfs the measure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What did the right hon. Gentleman do with regard to the seats ? He altered fifteen seats. It was no re distribution at all. It was a ludicrous attempt to arrange the question of the redistribution of seats. Gentlemen op posite have forgotten these words of the right hon. Gentleman. They would be a great deal wiser if they remembered some of the things which the Member for Buckinghamshire tells them. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that the county franchise should be reduced to 10/., and he said it would extend the franchise in counties by not fewer than 200,000 electors. And 200,000 is the exact number which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expects to be added to the county electors by the Bill now be fore the House. What did the right hon. Gentleman do with regard to the borough franchise ? He proposed that everybody who had an income of 10/. a-year from the Funds, from Bank Stock, or from East India Stock, or Bonds, should be enfranchised. It would be easy to show what a very foolish idea of enfranchisement that was ; because it is capable of distinct proof that any man who chose to invest 5,000/., or 6,000/., for which he would receive a steady in terest, might enfranchise all his family, from his grandfather to his youngest son, and even include all his uncles, nephews, and first cousins. And those persons would be enfranchised by a fraud it would be impossible to detect. He proposed that every person who had invested 60/. in a Savings-bank, even for one year, should have a vote. Thirdly, he proposed that pensioners in receipt of 20/. should have » vote. Fourthly, he proposed that persons occupying part of a house — that is, lodgers paying a sum of 20/. — should have a vote. The right hon. Gentleman also proposed that graduates of universities, ministers of re ligion, members of the various branches of the legal profession, medical men and schoolmasters having certificates, should have votes. We will not discuss whether that was a proper extension of the suffrage. If you like I will admit that every person included there — barring cases of fraud — would be suitable for the franchises. I am afraid of using the word ' suitable,' the hon. and learned Member for Belfast objects altogether to that— but I will admit that, according to my notion, and according to the notion of the majority of the House, all such persons, with the exception I have mentioned, would be proper persons to have votes. At what did the right hon. Gentleman estimate the number that would be added to the borough electors? At no less than 300,000. That is fifty per cent, more than is proposed to be added to the borough electors by the Bill now on the table — perhaps not exactly of the same class of persons. But whether you give the franchise to A or to B, it is equally an extension of the franchise. And when the Member for Buckingham- 36° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, shire was asked, towards the close of the discussion on the first night, what he thought would be the total addition to the number of electors in England and Wales, he said the increase, no doubt, would be very considerable — exceeding half a million, he had no hesitation in saying. In answer to the Royal speeches, in deference to what three Prime Ministers had said, and in accordance with the inquiry ' Can the question any longer be left in abeyance?' what did the Government of Lord Derby do ? They introduced a Franchise Bill, which I do not here undertake to approve or eondemn — that is not neces sary for my argument — they introduced a Franchise Bill that would increase the electoral body by not less than half a million — 100,006 more than the Chan cellor of the Exchequer proposes to admit by the Bill which he has laid on the table. Am I not therefore justified in saying that the Bill of the Member for Buckinghamshire was iri fact a Franchise Bill? What did the right hon. Gentleman do with regard to the seats? He was very chary in telling the House whajt he wished to do with regard to die seats. He did not wish, I suppose, to shock the Members who represented boroughs he was going to disfranchise. He did not disfranchise the borough of Calne. He did not even disfranchise the borough of Portarlington, for which, after a very exhaustive poll of forty-six votes, my right hon. Friend the Attorney- General for Ireland has been returned to this House. Nay, the right hon. Gen tleman defended the borough of Arundel in several sentences of his speech. He said that the noble Lord who represents the borough of Arundel sits here as the representative of 900,000 Catholics in England and Wales. But the borough of Arundel is as much a nomination borough as any in Schedule A of the Reform Bill. The right hon. Gentleman touched the question of seats so gentiy that he took only fifteen seats of small boroughs having now two seats, and he made a distribution of them which I need not detail to the House. He distributed them in a way which I am willing to admit was a very fair and satisfactory distribution of them, because he gave four seats to the West Riding of York shire, two seats to South Lancashire, two seats to Middlesex, and he proposed to create seven new boroughs' from towns that have a population entitling them to representatives. Therefore I do not complain at all of the way in which he distributed the seats ; but my argument goes to show that the Go vernment of Lord Derby felt that the real question involved in their Reform measure was the question of the fran chise, and accordingly Lord Derby's Government proposed by their Bill to admit 500,000 new electors and to dis tribute fifteen seats. I think then that nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that theirs was not a great Fran chise Bill — or that it was a Bill for the settlement of the distribution of seats. Now, if I were to ask the right hon. Gendeman why he touched the seats with so delicate a hand, and if he were to give me a candid and an honest answer, he would say that the difficul ties attending the question of the dis tribution are veiy much greater than the difficulties attending the question of the franchise ; and he would say, I am quite sure, that a Government having to deal with the question, than which none can be more important, and perhaps none can be more difficult, would be justified in taking that course which avoids diffi culties as much as possible, and enables Parliament to deal fairly and simply at once with one important branch of it. I will ask hon. Gentlemen opposite and the House — I will ask those Gen tlemen on this (the Liberal) side of the House, who are supposed, I hope un truly, to be about to vote with the Member for Chester— do they believe that if the right hon. Gentleman had passed his Bill admitting 500,000 elec tors, new voters, and distributing fifteen seats, the question of the arrangement of seats would have been settled for 1 866. REFORM. VII. 361 twenty, or ten, or for five years? Is not every man in the House convinced, and is not the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire convinced, that in the very next Parliament elected after the passing of that Bill there would have been propositions submitted to the House declaring that those small boroughs, which had not been touched, were not proper boroughs to return Members to this • House, and that a certain number of them should be ex tinguished and their Members turned over to the populous counties and to the great and populous cities? We should have had exactly what the Mem ber for Oxfordshire wants to avoid. We should have had every year a debate on a new Reform Bill, and a debate on the basis of power ; and there would have been contentions between die land owners and the rest of the population who are represented, and probably the right hon. Gentleman who sits on that bench and I, both wishing to. do fairly to all parts of the country in this matter, might not have seen distinctly whether more Members should be given to counties or more to boroughs. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to add to this Bill those fifteen seats of the Member for Buckinghamshire — that little clause of his in that very short Schedule — do you think the House would agree to pass it ? Will the noble Lord the Member for Chester (Earl Grosvenor) and his colleague who seconded the amend ment (Lord Stanley) frankly tell the House that if the distribution clauses of Lord Derby's Bill were added to the Bill of Lord RusseU, they would give that Bill their support ? If they will undertake to do that, although it might ruin the Government if I said it — still I would give them a little advice, and I would counsel them to take it. You know perfectly well that all this clamour you have been making about the dis tribution of seats — I am afraid,. Sir, there is not exactly a parliamentary term that will enable me to express it with sufficient delicacy— but, at least, one thing you know, you do not impose upon us with that cry. I do not think I felt the slightest satisfaction when the Government proposed to lay upon the table of the House their Bill for the distribution of seats. If I had been a Minister, I think I should have recom mended that the Member for Calne, for example, and the Member for Stamford — both of whom must know a good deal about the small boroughs — should have been requested to prepare clauses of disfranchisement for the fair consi deration of the House. It is obvious that if the arguments on which you have opposed this Bill are your honest arguments, you would not support the Bill, though the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to propose to add to it the distribution clauses of the Bill of Lord Derby. And I think you would be wise in refusing it; because although that distribution is, I believe, perfectly satisfactory and fair as far as it goes, yet it would not in any degree settle that question ; and I am con vinced that the greatest error the House can commit is to agree to something on the question of the franchise and some thing on the question of the distribution of seats, by which neither the one ques tion nor the other shall be settled. But, Sir, at this moment, the Government is assailed by a united party on the other side of the House, with a few recruits from this side. I tell hon. Gentlemen opposite that they are not in very good hands. The Member for Buckingham shire and the Member for King's Lynn are not, in my opinion, councillors to ¦be followed implicitly on this question of Reform ; and if anybody doubts it I should call as witnesses the two right hon. Gentlemen to whom I have already referred. You have before you the Bill of Lord Russell's Government, and you know exactly what it is. You may think quite, honestly that the reduction of the franchise is something more than is necessary, and you may even think it is something more than is safe ; but you know exactly what it is. ['No, no.'] 362 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, You have listened with very small atten tion to the speakers on this side of the House if you do not, at least, know the worst of it. What was the Bill brought in by the Member for Buckingham shire? — and it had upon every clause of it the impress of his subtle under standing. I will tell you what was said of it by the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) on that night when he explained to us why he had withdrawn from the Government. He said that their scheme of suffrage was — ' A most dangerous innovation, by giving to temporary and fluctuating occupations a prepondering influence over property and intelligence, while it throws large masses into the constituencies who are almost ex empt from direct taxation.' That is exactly what your friends have been saying of the Bill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And, again, the Member for the University said, and this, I think, was in a letter which he wrote to Lord Derby, and which he read to the House : — ' The measure which the Cabinet are prepared to recommend [and in which he did not, as you know, concur] is one which we should all of us have strongly opposed if either Lord Palmerston or Lord Russell had ventured to bring it forward.' The right hon. Gentleman knew exactly the character of his colleagues. It was prophetic of the course which they would take, and which they have taken now, in opposition to a Bill which only proposes to admit 400,000 electors, while their own Bill proposed to admit 500,000. Now, the Member for Oxford shire on the same evening, with regard to the same question, used these remark able words : — ' I believe that identity of suffrage, which is the principle of the Government Bill, is fatal to the constitution of this country.'I do not think that anybody in the House during this discussion has gone so far as to say that the reduction of 3/. in the borough franchise would be absolutely fatal to the constitution of this country, seeing that five hundred years ago, and less, every freeman being a householder in every borough had, a vote for Members to sit in this House. But the two right hon. Gentlemen ex pressed these opinions of the Bill intro duced by the Member for Buckingham shire, and I say, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, especially the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn, are condemned out of the mouths of their former colleagues, and ought to be put out of court as advisers on this question. I shall now ask the attention of the House for a little time to the Bill itself. Hitherto I have been speaking as to the mode in which the Government have proposed to deal with this question. As to the Bill itself, almost everything that has been said has been said in con nection with the question of the borough franchise. I omit altogether the sort of frenzy into which the Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Adderley) worked himself the other night when discussing the question of the county franchise. For aught that I know, a 14/. rental franchise in counties may have a very. fatal effect in North Staffordshire. I like to take the advice and opinion of men of great experience and great mo deration, and it is for this reason that I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire to step for one moment into the witness-box on this matter. He said in the speech to which I have referred : — 'Ever since the Reform Act of 1832 the working-people have been having a less and less share in the representation. They had considerable representation be fore 1832 through the scot and lot voters and the freemen. They are gradually dying out.' And turning to those about him he said : — 'I ask my honourable friends near me to consider, if they draw a hard line, and 1 866. REFORM. VII. 363 leave the working-people behind it, how long they think it will stand ?' That was a wise saying, a pertinent ques tion in the year 1 859, and it is not less wise and worth considering in the year 1 866. But then the greater part of it is exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said. The right hon. Gentleman has told the House that the propor tionate power of the working-classes in the constituencies has been diminishing since 1832. I believe there can be no doubt of it; and here I must tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that my opinion is — and I think every Member of the House who represents a borough, excepting the borough of Coventry and perhaps one or two others, must know — that the .figures which have been laid before the House by which the per centage of working-men electors is put down at 25 or 26 per cent., are not in any degree to be relied upon, nor are they in any degree accurate. Now, hon. Gentlemen have a perfect right, of course, in assailing the Government, to fight upon the figures which they have laid before them, and the Govern ment would find it very difficult to re treat from the position they have taken up upon those figures. I am not one of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and am not one of a Government responsible for those figures. I am here as an ad vocate, an honest advocate of a mode rate and just reform, and, therefore, I must deal with this question from my own point of view, and speak of it in language based on the convictions which I hold. I will give the House only two cases, and I have not sought "for them in the Blue Book or written about the country for them. The first has been presented to this House, I believe, in a petition by the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent. Stoke-upon-Trent, as hon. Gentlemen know, is a borough consisting of three or four neighbouring towns. One of them is the town of Burslem. The Blue Book says that Burslem is a constituency with 680 electors. Of that number 197 are represented to be working-men or arti sans, and that they form 29 per cent. of the whole number. But what does this petition, which has been accurately prepared, and which gives the analysis of the register for Burslem, say? It says this: that of the 197 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer's figures represent to be working-men there is 1 publican and 40 beersellers. That is 41 to begin with. I would rather have 40 really hard-working, indus trious artisans in any -borough than 40 beersellers. But there are grocers and other shopkeepers to the number of 48. There are persons who are put down as cartowners, cowkeepers, tradesmen with assistants, having profits from their capital in their trade, numbering 33 ; and adding these together and deduct ing them from the 197, there remain in the town of Burslem not 197 working- men on the register, but 75. You may bring if you like the whole staff of the Poor-law Board, but they cannot alter these figures, and it shall not be my fault if the House discusses this ques tion and decides upon figures that are deceptive and delusive. Next I will take one other town, and that is the borough of Wakefield. The Blue Book says there are 122 working- men, or rather over 11 per cent, in the borough of Wakefield. But if you will deduct the various classes to which I have refened with regard to Burslem, you will bring the number of 122 in Wakefield down to 35, so that instead of there being 1 1 per cent, of the pre sent constituency working-men, there are not more than 3 per cent. I was talking the other day to a Member on this side of the House, the Member for Newark. -I will not give the figures, for I have not them in my recollection, but I hope he will take some opportunity of stating them to the House. But the re turn from Newark was sent back, I think, twice, if not three times, for correction, and I think at least one county magistrate was put down amongst the working-men. The only figures with which I shall trouble the House are these. We have 364 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, had the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and quite as many more from Gentlemen opposite, and I wish to give the House my figures in a single sentence. The Blue ' Book says that there are 126,000 working-men upon the register. Some bring these down to one-third that number; but, for the sake of being within the mark, I will call them half. The 126,000 is then brought down to 63,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer calculated that by the repeal of the rate-paying clauses and the system of compounding, persons who . pay 10/. a-year rent, who are now excluded, would be admitted to the number of 60,000. He put all these 60,000 as working-men. There is not a man in any borough in England that believes that is an accurate calculation. I put these down at one-third that number — namely, 20,000. The Chan cellor of the Exchequer says that be tween 10/. and 7/. there wiU be ad mitted 144,000, and he estimates these I as being all1 working-men. We all know that these persons within 7/. and" 10/. ! are not, cannot, and never have been ¦ all working-men, and I reckon that if two-thirds are admitted as working- men that will be as fair- a calculation as can be made. Look at the result. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says when this Bill is passed there will be 330,000 working- men upon the register. I say there will be 1 79,000. Call them, for easier recollec tion, 180,000. The newly admitted by this Bill will be 116,000. What will be the gross effect ? The whole number of borough electors in England and Wales, if this Bill should pass, upon the calcu lation of the Blue Book will be 691,000, of whom 180,000 only, or about one- fourth, will be working-men, and there fore that portion of the people which forms at least three-fourths of the whole population will only have one-fourth of the electoral power in the boroughs, and no power whatever worth reckon ing in the constituencies of the counties. I shall say no more about these statis tics. Having made my calculations, they are as proper to be placed before the House as those of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any hon. Gentle man, opposite. But, after all, there will be in England and Wales more than 4,000,000 of men left out. I think so much political trepidation — I will say so much political cowardicej if I may be allowed the use of that , word — never was exhibited before as in the terror shown- by the mover and seconder of this amendment, because 116,000 new voters amongst working- men will be admitted, while more than 4,000,000 will be left out. I am aston ished at these alarmist speeches. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Hertfordshire (Sir E. B. Lytton) deals in alarmist speeches. He comes down once or twice during the session, and makes a speech, which gives great satis faction to the House, provided you do not pay the least attention to what there is in it. I mean that in tone, manner, and imagery we are pleased, but I am grieved when I find the side to which the right hon. Baronet gives his great influence. In the year i860, the right hon. Gentleman made- a speech of a much more alarmist character than the one which he made last week,, and therefore we may reckon upon some amendment in his condition. In i860 he said the Bill that was introduced by Lord John Russell, as a member of Lord Palmerston's. Government, was a Bill to admit ' poverty and passion' to the fran chise. This is one of his passages t — ' Though we are willing to admit poverty and passion into the franchise, we are not willing to give poverty and passion the lion's share of political power over capital and knowledge.'' That is very much like what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cam bridge University said of the Bill of the Member for Buckinghamshire. He did not use the words ' poverty and passion,' but he spoke of things that were fatal to the Constitution as being likely to be enacted by the Bill. The right hon. Baronet once held i866. REFORM. VII. 365 very different opinions from these. Many years ago he published a book called ' England and the English.' This is not a very profound, but a very amusing book, and I should like to read to the House a sentence which the right hon. Gentleman put as a motto to the book, which motto, I think, he took from Ben Jonson. The words are — * I am he Have measured all the shires of England over, For to these savages I was addicted To search their nature and make odd dis- The discovery which he had made up to i860 was this : if you introduce artisans and working-men between a 10/. and 61. rental, you give the lion's share of the power of representation to the poverty and passion of the countiy. In his speech last week he did not treat the working-men as if they were made up of poverty and passion, but he used generous words of them, and he told us how there was a tie not only of interest, but of respect and affection, between the rich and the labouring poor; and doubtless this language far more accurately stated his real opinion than when he said that between 61. and 10/. the working-men were represented by ' poverty and passion.' But to give them compliments Of this kind, and not votes, seems to me to be a thing which will not be well received by the great body of the people, who' are asking that at least some of them may be admitted to a representation in this House. It reminds me very much of that couplet which I am sure the right hon. Gentle man will remember from Shenstone — ' He kicked them down stairs with such a sweet grace, They may think he was handing them up.' How is it to be conceived that after a speech full of such noble and generous sympathy the right hon. Gentleman concludes to throw all the weight of his character and influence into the side of a party which says little that is kind and generous of this class? [Loud Opposition cries of ' No, no.'] I will say, then, of a party which sometimes does say something generous of the working-class, but never shows the slightest disposition to confer upon it any portion of political rights. I now ask the attention of the right hon. Gentleman and the House to one point which he touched with great force and great beauty of language in refer ring to some friends and neighbours of mine — the members of the co-operative societies of Rochdale. When I heard his words I thought he was going back unconsciously to the year 1832, when he was a most enthusiastic supporter of the Reform Bill of that day, and when he was a member of the Parliamentary Candidate Society, with the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, with Jeremy Bentham, Daniel O'Connell, Francis Place, Charles Buller, and many others. I thought he was going back to that time, but if not so far, that he was at least going back to 1847 and 1848, in both which years he was in favour of an extension of the franchise. Now, what did he say of my neighbours and friends? He said, — ' To artisans of that class, whatever their political creed, I am willing to grant the franchise. Willing, do I say ? — that word is much too cold. I wish that, like some old commonwealth of Greece, we could admit them to the franchise by accla mation, to be proud of such fellow-citizens, without asking what rent they pay for their houses.' I happen to live amongst all these persons of whom the right hon. Gentle man has spoken with so much enthu siasm, and, therefore, if the House will peimit me, I will state a little of their case, and I have no objection to rest my case upon theirs. In i860, in the discussion of the Bill of the Government, I laid some facts connected with these co-operation societies before the House. There are three bodies or companies 366 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, managed by three committees. One is called the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, which chiefly concerns itself in the retail business, and the facts which I am about to give have been supplied to me by the secretary of the society. He says that there are 5,500 members, chiefly heads of families. It has a capital of 85,000/., and it is selling goods and receiving money at the rate of 230,000/. per annum. Let the House bear in mind that there is not one of these 5,500 members can have one sin gle farthing of credit. The business is managed by a committee of eleven, of whom two have a borough vote, and one of them is a book-keeper, and is treasurer of the society, and therefore, in a certain sense, he is not exactly what we understand by a working-man. He and another have borough votes, while the president and secretary of this great establishment have no votes. We now come to the Rochdale District Co-operative Corn Mill Society, which does a large business. It has a capital of 60,000/., and turns over 164,000/. per annum. It has also a committee of eleven; but neither the president, nor treasurer, nor secretary, nor any one of this committee has a borough vote. One of the committee has a county vote, being probably the owner of a cottage in the neighbourhood. Then there is theRochdaleCo-operativeManufacturing Society, which has more than 1,500 members, or shareholders, and a capital of 109,000/. It has built two of the largest and handsomest factories in the neighbourhood, and the meeting in sup port of this Bill was held in one of them which has not yet received its machinery. This society is also managed by a committee of eleven, of whom three have borough votes, and two have county votes. But of these five voters only one is ' a working-man ' in the usual sense. The voters are thus described — one is a manager, one a manufacturer, one a draper, one out of business, and one only is a mechanic. Now, the total capital of these societies is 227,246/., the whole of which has been contributed, or nearly so. by the working-men of Rochdale, of whom the right hon. Gentleman spoke the other night in such glowing language. The secretary writes : — ' The present writer has seen members of the Pioneers' Society, who had scarcely any work or income for the family during the famine, come for 5s. or 10s. from their investments of previous savings, just to help them on with their small earnings. They did not ask or receive relief. This does not show improvidence or want of forethought. Now that the cotton famine is nearly over, the members are again saving money. In June, 1865, their in vestments were : In the Pioneers' Society, 59,000/.; in September, 1865, 63,000/.; in December, 1865, 69,000/.; and in March, 1866, they reached 76,602/.' I hope the right hon. Member for Calne will forgive me for reading the next line — 'This does not agree with the Lowe theory.' Now, what is taking place in the Rochdale societies is occurring in greater or less degree in all the societies, of which, there are five or six hundred throughout the countiy. What is the answer which anybody has given to these men ? Will you give the same answer which the right hon. Baronet the Member for Hertfordshire gave? Will you receive them with open arms and not ask them whether they pay 7/. or 61. for their rental ? If hon. Gentlemen are in favour of the extension of the • franchise — I exclude the hon. and learned Member for Belfast altogether — to those who are so worthy of it, upon the descrip tion of one of your own eminent leaders, will you allow these 5,500 men to have the franchise now in Rochdale ? I beg to tell them it would be a great mistake to think that the men in Rochdale are better than those in the other manufactu ring towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. They would altogether scout the idea, and I, who know them; as well as most men — and I know a good deal of the working-men of Lancashire and York shire — should say that those at Roch- 1 866. REFORM. VII. 367 dale are a fair sample of the great mass of the industrious, intelligent, and inde pendent population amongst whom we live. The hon. Member for Wick is terrified at the idea of the votes of these men. Northern breezes and long experience have done nothing for him. He de scribed all the good things which have been done in Parliament during the last twenty years, and he does not seem to be aware that there is not one of those good things which the working-men of Lancashire and Yorkshire did not heartily support. I know not half a dozen Gentlemen opposite who gave any continuous support whatsoever to those good things. The hon. Gentleman puts it to the credit of Parliament that it repealed the Corn-law. If he had consulted my right hon. Friend the President of the Poor Law Board, I think he would have been told that, until Sir Robert Peel abandoned Pro tection, there never were a hundred Members in the House who gave a vote in favour of the repeal of the Corn-law, and that it was done, as everybody knows now, by an agitation of enormous cost both in money and labour, and by the occurrence of a famine which threw disgrace upon the Government of this country, not because potatoes should have decayed, but that when they did decay a whole population should have run the risk of being destroyed by it. The same men who both out of doors and in Parliament asked for these good measures are the very men who ask for this Bill, and I venture to tell the House that if they do not get this Bill they will get one very much like it. I shall not ask the attention of the House to more figures, or endeavour to show the inconsistency of any Members on the other side of the House ; but I will ask them, if they can, calmly to consider the present position of this question. Look all over the countiy, and you will find that in a week or a fortnight there have been held more than a hundred public meetings which were unanimous in favour of this Bill. Hon. Gentlemen opposite do hot pursue a policy which enables them to hold public meetings. You have had pre sented many hundred petitions in its favour, with nearly 500,000 signatures appended to them. If the Bill were so de structive, if it struck such terror into the hearts of the people as it seems to have done in the case of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn — and I believe there was o petition from Lynn signed by a hundred of his constituents in sup port of his views — if the people felt that the Government were going on a wrong course, that the middle class were to be swamped, and all kinds of evil to follow the passing of this Bill, is it conceivable that numbers of public meetings would not have been held, and that numbers of petitions would not have been signed, praying that the Bill should not pass ? Look at the moderate and reasonable tone of the meetings that have been held. I appeal particularly to the two right hon. Gentlemen I see before me — they are not so stiff as some in the un- teachable prejudices of their party, and the tone of their remarks shows that they have a real conviction, and are desirous of acting upon it. Look, then, at the attitude of the people. Suppose when Lord John Russell, in the years previous to 1830, was bringing forward year after year measures for the reform of Parliament— suppose you had ac cepted some of those propositions, and that Parliament had been to a certain extent reformed, do you not think that would have been a course as wise as to go on heedlessly step by step until you came to the edge of that terrible abyss over which you could not bear to look in 1832 ? You may always pass a mea sure with more honour to yourselves .and more good to the countiy in times of peace and tranquillity than in times of force and compulsion ; and times of peace and tranquillity are invariably, if not immediately, followed in matters of this description by times of force and compulsion. The right hon. Member for Oxfordshire told you what must happen if you chose to set up a barrier 368 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 23, and thrust the working classes "behind it and tell them that that line must for ever separate them from yon. You have 1,000,000 electors now, and there are 8,000,000 of grown men in the United Kingdom ; can you say that only 1,000,000 shall have votes and that all the rest are to remain excluded ? Is the thing possible ? The right hon. Mem ber for Huntingdonshire (Gen. Peel) seems to think it is possible; but he knows it is not possible. He has before him the example of an illustrious mem ber of his own family, who thought it possible to maintain the principle of Protection by the Corn-law, and who, finally, after doing everything he could, after violating his own convictions for years in fighting the battles of his party, was compeUed at last to surrender, and to admit to the humblest man in the country, and the poorest weaver, that he, the great Minister of State in this country, had not comprehended the question of the Corn-laws so well as the working-men of England compre hended it. Are you resolved — and this is the question we are in fact now discussing — that the bolts shall be kept in that door, and that the mass of the people shall be forced to remain on the other side of it ? The hon. and learned Member for Belfast told us that there should be, not a representation of the people, but a representation of classes. If the hon. and learned Gentleman gave opinions in a court of law no sounder than he gives us here on the question of the Constitution, depend upon it he never would have been enabled to reach the high position he now holds in his profession. He knows perfectiy well there never was such a thing as a repre sentation of classes in the Commons House of Parliament ; we should have been called the House of Classes, or something equally absurd, if anything so absurd ever had existed. He knows per fectly well that in the times previous to the usurpations of the Tudors and the Stuarts, every freeman resident, being a householder in a borough, had a vote for a representative in that House. He knows, also, that die first Parliament of Charles I. declared — and it is now on record in the journals — that the franchise of common right rested with the inhabitant householders of boroughs. Though he contended that the quotation I made' from Lord Somers did not bear the meaning I attached to it, yet if we come down to the men of fifty or sixty years ago, he will not deny that all the leading Liberal men of that period were in favour of the extension of the suffrage far beyond that which is proposed in this Bill. There is much that I think shows you are hurrying to times of difficulty and peril. If you look at what is pass ing in the United States you will see that there is a question which is causing great difficulties, just as this question is causing them here. It is proposed that the 4,000,000 negroes of the United States shall have these rights granted to them ; that they shall no longer be bought and sold ; that they may change their employment and their master; that they may sue or be sued in a court of law, and may give evidence in a court of justice. Beyond that their rights are not at present to go, and those who were their masters not two years ago, and who bought and sold them, are not willing, for reasons which they think sufficient, to grant them the franchise, which is universal in that country. The franchise never has been universal in this country. It is not necessary that it should be; but we have a repre sentative Constitution, and we are the House of Commons, and if the Throne be sacred in its dignity, and if the Peers be unmolested in their privileges, the House of Commons remains the safe guard of the Constitution, and those who are sent here sit by right of free election by the commonalty of this kingdom. You may defeat this Bill. I am not at all learned in Parliamentary com putations, but there are hon. Gentlemen on both sides who can tell exactly what the majority for or against this Bill will i866. REFORM. VII. 3^9 be. I will admit fully that you can reject this Bill, defeat the Government, and drive Lord Russell from office. The right hon. Gentleman has no doubt somewhere a Parliamentary Bradshaw —all his lines converge to Downing- street. We have let him in once or twice, indeed, but had very soon after wards to expel him from that paradise of official men. If the right hon. Gen tleman goes to Downing-street, are you prepared to say that there shall be no Reform, or that the right hon. Gentle man and his friends, who in 1859 proposed measures which their most experienced colleagues declared to be fatal to the Constitution, shall again deal with this question? Does not conduct like this always break up a party? When you come to deal with the question of Reform you will find difficulties ; if you resolve not to deal with it, your difficulties will not be less. Whatever is said in this House, whether the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer carries this Bill or not, there still remains the nation outside this House, and there still remains the great question of Parliamentary Reform. I believe there never was a Bill sub mitted to this House by a Government connected with the Liberal party which it was more clearly the duty and the interest of what is called the Conservative party to support. In 1832 the then Tory party opposed the Bill ; they went to their constituencies and were mostly destroyed for a time. If this Bill passes, the enlarged constituencies .will not look very favourably upon Gentlemen who tried to prevent the Bill from passing. When you see a man like Lord Russell, who was the chief supporter of the Bill of 1832, who promoted it years before it made its appearance, and who pro posed it on behalf of the Government — when you see him, knowing certainly as much of this question as any man in this House — when you see him con vinced of the necessity of doing some thing on this question, and offering a Bill so reasonable as this, I cannot help saying, either that hon. Gentlemen are misled by their leaders, or that they have driven their leaders into a course which I think is pernicious to the true interests of their party. Perhaps there never was a Bill which more fairly accommodated itself to the advancing intelligence of the people. There is not a whisper of dissatisfaction with it. [Cries of ' Oh !'] I speak of those persons who are in favour of any im provement of the representation ; and so far as I have been able to learn or gather, even those who are called Conservatives throughout the countiy, are weary of the perpetual discussion of this question, and would be glad that it could be settled on the terms which the Government has proposed. I did not rise with the expectation that I should convince hon. Gentlemen that they are wrong and that I am right ; the most that I can hope for is that some fact or some argument may find a lodgment in some mind, and may moderate hostility to a proposal which I think the country requires, and the country is anxious to receive. I have not spoken in favour of the Government. I have said that I think their figures are wrong and untrue — injurious to their own Bill and their own case. Now, will the House believe for once that I am speaking to them from no party spirit, from no desire to do any thing in the countiy or to the country more than they would wish ? My view of the public interest is at least as conscientious and as honest as theirs can be. I have been misrepresented, and condemned, and denounced by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and by not a few writers in their press. My conscience tells me that I have laboured honestly only to destroy that which is evil, and to build up that which is good. The political gains of the last twenty-five years, as they were summed up the other night by the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), are my political gains, if they can be called the gains in any degree of any living Englishman. And if now, in all the great centres of our population — in Birmingham with 24 37° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. its busy district — in Manchester with its encircling towns— in the population of the West Riding of Yorkshire — in Glasgow and amidst the vast industries of the West of Scotland — and in this great Babylon in which we are assem bled — if we do not find ourselves sur rounded by hungry and exasperated multitudes — if now, more than at any time during the last hundred years, it may be said, quoting the beautiful words of Mr. Sheridan, that — ' Content sits basking on the cheek of toil' — if this House, and if its statesmen glory in the change, have I not as much as any living man some claim to partake of that glory? I know, and every thoughtful man among you knows, and those Gentlemen who sit on that bench and who are leading you to this enter prise, they know that the policy I have urged upon the House and upon the country, so far as it has hitherto been accepted by Parliament, is a policy conservative of the public welfare, strengthening the just authority of Par liament, and adding from day to day fresh lustre and dignity to the Crown. And now, when I speak to you and ask you to pass this Bill — when I plead on behalf of those who are not allowed to speak themselves in this House — if you could raise yourselves for this night, for this hour, above the region of party strife — if you could free yourselves from the pestilent atmosphere of passion and prejudice which so often surrounds us here, I feel confident that at this moment I should not plead in vain before this Imperial Parliament on be half of the English constitution and the English people. REFORM. VIII. BIRMINGHAM, AUGUST 27, 1866. [A great open-air meeting was held in Birmingham on the 27th of August, 1 866, to pass resolutions in favour of Reform. It was calculated that more than 150,000 men were present at it. In the evening a great meeting was held in the Town Hall of Birmingham, at which an Address of confidence was presented to Mr. Bright, and at which this speech was spoken.] I accept the Address which has just been presented to me with feelings which I shall not attempt to express. I accept it as ample compensation for whatsoever labours I have expended in your service, and I shall take it from this meeting, and hold it as a constant stimulus to whatsoever labours may lie in my path in your service for the future. There are times when I feel no little despondency at the small result of many years of public labour ; but to look upon a meeting like that assembled here, and to look upon that vast gathering which your town has exhibited to the country and to the world to-day, is enough to dispel every feeling of fear or of de spondency, and to fill the heart and nerve the arm to new and greater labours for the future. During the last session of Parliament, in the debate on the second reading of the Franchise Bill, I took the oppor tunity of offering a word of counsel and of warning to the powerful party in the House which opposed that Bill. In those words of warning and of counsel I asked them to remember that if they should succeed in defeating that Bill and overthrowing the Government, there would still remain the people of England to be met, and the claims of the great question of Reform to be considered and settled. We have not had to wait long before that which I foretold has come to pass. In London we have seen assemblies of the people such as for a generation past have not been witnessed. In many other parts of the country there have been meetings greater than have been seen for thirty years, and notably to-day there has been a voice given forth from the very centre and heart of Eng land which will reach at least to the circumference of the three kingdoms. There has been an attempt to measure the numbers that are present in this Hall at this moment. There are pro bably six thousand persons here. I ask any who were present to-day to reckon how many times this Hall could have been filled from that multitudinous con gregation upon which our eyes rested, but to the full extent of which they could scarcely reach. It is highly probable that it might have been filled forty times from that vast number. Yes, and at this moment I am told that outside there is an audience far greater than that I now address ; whilst to-morrow morning 24 — 2 373 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST 27, 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 27 th 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. My hon. 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 Franchise Bill — of a singular and most honest sim plicity; 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 I think it necessary to state this because of the argument which I intend to raise upon it. The Govern ment produced to the House of Com mons a Blue Book, most elaborately compiled, and as far as I know, with the exception of one point, correct and trustworthy ; but they proposed to inform the House of the number of working-men who 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 believe to have been to a very •great 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 rate-paying 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 fran chise 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 esti mate was made with perfect honesty by Mr. Gladstone, but that it was to a very large extent erroneous. I showed several boroughs, and I believe I might have gone through almost every borough in the United Kingdom, where the num ber of working-men stated in the returns was at least double, and in many cases far more than double, the actual num ber upon the register. I estimated, also, that although the abolition of the rate-paying clauses might add 60,000 new votes, it would be very unfair to expect that more than one-third, or 20,000 of them — being ten-pounders and upwards — would be of the class of working-men. I 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 esti mate differed, therefore, from Mr. Glad stone's thus far. I said that of the 126,000 now upon the register there were not more than the half, or 63,000 ; instead of there being 60,000 admitted by the abolition of the rate-paying 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 there fore 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 1 79,000, and that the Bill would not admit 204.000, but only 1 1 6,000 of tiiat class. Take either my estimate of 116,000 or Mr. Gladstone'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 ac cording to the Government estimate, 1 866. REFORM. VIII. 373 116,000 according to mine, and in ad dition about 200,000 new voters added to the counties under a 14/. franchise, who must of necessity be almost al together outside the working-classes. That was the Bill which my hon. Col league 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 num ber of the working-classes to be admit ted in the boroughs of England and Wales was only 200,000. Now that Bill, so moderate that I confess I had entertained the hope that it would pass through Parliament with out any great difficulty, was resisted as if it had been charged with all the dan gerous matter which the Tory party actually attributed toit. Itwas 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 twenty-three years that I have sat in the House of Commons ; and, finally, under every kind of false pretence, it was rejected by a small majority, and fell, and with it the 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 countiy any share in its government. I am not confined to the votes of the House and the destraction of the Bill, but I am able, I think, to show you by the arguments on which the Tory party proceeded that such is their determination, and it may be their unchangeable resolution. Several of the speakers to-night have referred to the slanders heaped upon the great body of the people during the discussions of the last session ; and, no doubt, although his name was not men tioned, the speakers had in their minds one Member of the House who virtually has no constituency — whose sole con stituent, 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 probably 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 that 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, as is well known, the speaker has been for many years an eminent writer, and over which, unless reports speak untruly, he has no small degree of control. He says: — ' I have had opportunities of knowing some of the constituencies of this coun try, and I ask if you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of intimidating — if you want impulsive, un reflecting, violent people — where would you go to look for them? To the top or to the bottom ? It is ridiculous to blink the fact that since the Reform Act the great corruption has been among the voters between 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 con taining 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 experience 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 propose to bring them back again under another name, so that the effect of passing this Bill would be — first, to increase corruption, intimidation, and 374 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. all the evils that happen usually in elec tion ; 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 our selves. We have objects to carry as well as our neighbours, and let us unite to carry those objects. We have the ma chinery. We have our trades-unions. We have our leaders 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 will bring it to bear with tenfold more force than ever before." ' These are the sentiments which, ut tered in my hearing, were received with enthusiastic 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 something like ruin will ensue. That there will be more venality, ignorance, and drunkenness ; 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 combina tions of working-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 men who have now no vote, and whom we pretend to represent, ' No one of you who cannot pay a rental of 10/. shall ever speak by his direct representative within the walls 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 only because it has been accepted and ap proved by the great Tory party in Parliament. However, I say — I who am charged with designs against the safety of the institutions of this countiy — I say it is a dangerous policy — a policy which enforced in other countries has done great things. Through it crowns and coronets have sometimes been lost, and I am not sure that it is a policy which can be safely maintained with us. I asked one of the most intelligent and excellent Frenchmen with whom I am acquainted, one of the most con fidential friends of the dynasty of Louis Philippe and of the Orleans family, what it was that drove that family from France, and I referred to stories of corruption among ministers and other things which had been circulated in public and in private. He said : ' None of these things did it. It was the at tempt of the King to govern France by a parliament that represented an in significant minority of the people, and which parliament he thought he could perpetually manage by a judicious dis tribution of patronage.' On the principle of governing this country by a Parlia ment elected by an insignificant minority of the people, Lord Derby comes 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 king dom, I say that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working-classes. The course taken in London the other day by the police, and it had almost been by the military, is an illustration of the doc trines 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, i866. REFORM. VIII. 375 fairly representing all the nation, as important a part of the governmental system of this kingdom as either the House of Lords or the Throne itself. If they thus despise the Constitution they likewise despise the claims of five or six millions who are unrepresented. You may work, you may pay taxes, you may serve in the army, and fight ; 70,000 or more of your brethren are now living under the 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 drawn, 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 Members. 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 Cali fornia. You are to work, but you are not to take root in the country, or to consider the country as your countiy; 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 I have read to you to-night. You are to be told that you are so ignorant and so venal, so drunken, so impulsive, so un reflecting, and so disorderly, that it is not even safe to skim off 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 Commons. This is the Tory theory. This is the faith of Lord Derby and his party, and I maintain that I am not saying a word that is an exaggeration of the truth, for I have heard that party over and over again vociferously cheer sentiments, such as I have described. The Govern ment which has been overturned was a very different Government. Lord Rus sell 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 difference between the Derby Govern ment and the Russell Government. Lord Derby asked Lord Clarendon to take office in his Government. There was something charming in the very audacity of Lord Derby's effrontery. Lord Clarendon was an eminent Minis ter of the Government that brought in a Bill which the Tory party declared to be subversive 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 dare say some of you have seen and listened to. I mean the Christy Minstrels. The Christy Minstrels, 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 trans formation 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 coming session, we shall know something more about them than we do at present ; they are in point of fact, when they pre tend to be Liberal, mere usurpers and impostors. Their party will not allow them to be Liberal, and they exist only upon the principle upon which they have acted in all their past histoiy, of resisting and rejecting every proposition 376 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. august 27, 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 con stitutional rights ? If any of you take ship to Canada you will find the Derby principle utterly repudiated. But in Canada there is no uprooting of insti tutions, and no destruction of property, and there is no absence of order or of loyalty. If you go to Australia you will find there that the Derby principle is unknown, and yet there reigns order as in this countiy, and contentment with the institutions of the colonies, and a regard for law and property. 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 great war and a great revolution with a conduct and success, with a generosity and a magna nimity which have attracted and aroused the admiration of the world. And if you go to Europe, you find in the Re public 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 our time, unknown ; and neither emperor, king, nor noble believes that his authority or his in terests, or the greatness or happiness 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 twenty-five 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 now being esta blished. But what is it we are coming to in this country? To this, that the tiling 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. For in this England, five millions of grown men, representing more than twenty millions of our population, are to be permanently denied that which makes the only dif ference 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? 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 centre — she was not afraid of the Franchise Bill which the Government introduced last session. Seven times, I think, by her own lips or by her pen she has recommended to Parliament the admission of a large number of working-men to the Parlia mentary franchise. If tiiis proposition was destructive, would not the Queen discover that fact? If the Bill of the last session had been a pernicious Bill, would the thirty millions 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-by we shall see in the populous districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire assemblies rivading 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, in timidation, and tumult in the boroughs, what do we find ? Do not suppose that I am charging that House of Commons with faults that it does not itself under stand and acknowledge: — have you read the report of the proceedings at the Commission for Yannouth? 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, contributed 4000/. for the election of his partner, and that another 1866. REFORM. VIII. 377 gentleman, knowing nothing of that borough, went down there and supplied 6000/. to fight a contest spread only over a few days ? And remember that when Yannouth or any other borough is thus brought before the public it is only a sample of a veiy considerable sack — and that for every borough which is thus exposed there are probably ten or twenty other boroughs which are to a very large extent liable to the very same condemnation. Notwithstanding this, if we go to the House of Com mons, we find the Parliament of England at this moment about equaUy 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-menof England should heartily throw their influence into that side which is for their interests, and that side will prevail. You know I have preferred that the franchise should be established upon what I consider to be the ancient practice of the country. I am not afraid of the principles of the Reform League. I have no- fear of manhood suffrage, 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 flag 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 speaking in the ear of every intelligent, sober, and thoughtful working-man in the three kingdoms — let us try to move on toge ther; let us not split hairs on this question ; let us do as our fathers did thirty-four years ago ; let us have asso ciations everywhere ; let every work shop and factory be a Reform Asso ciation; let there be in every one of them a correspondent, or a secretary, who shall enrol members and assist this great and noble cause. I would recommend that the passages I 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 club-house, and in every placewhere working-men are accustomed to assemble. Let us rouse the spirit of the people against these slan derers of a great and noble nation. There will soon come another elec tion. The working-men may not be able to vote, but they can form them selves 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 number less 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 ques tion of Reform shall be dealt with by a Government honestly in favour of Reform. The Address which has been pre sented to me has referred to 1832. I remember 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 countrymen 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 straggle which is before us. Remember the great ob ject for which we strive. Care 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. REFORM. IX. GLASGOW, OCTOBER 16, 1866. [On the 16th of October, 1866, a procession of many thousands of the friends of Reform passed through the streets of the city of Glasgow, and formed in a great meeting on Glasgow Green. The numbers present have been variously estimated, but it seemed as if nearly all the male population of the city were there. In the evening a great meeting was held in the City Hall, and Mr. Bright was presented with an Address, in answer to which this speech was spoken.] Mr. Chairman, and Citizens of no mean City, — I accept this Address which has been read in your hearing and presented to me, with a feeling of deep gratitude to those who have ex pressed such friendly feelings towards me, but with a deep anxiety when I consider the intent and purport of the document. I am consoled by regarding it as in some degree a compact or cove nant entered into to-night by you and those whom you represent, with me and those whom I may be supposed in some degree to represent, and that we covenant together that whatsoever is moral for us to do we engage to do in the prosecution of that great cause which has stirred the heart of Glasgow to-day. I can do but little — any one man can do but little ; but you in your vast numbers can do much, by uniting with numbers, not smaller, in other parts of the kingdom. I have a strong sense that the day is fast approaching which will see the triumph of our cause, and I think he must be blind and foolish indeed who is not willing to admit that it is a great issue which is now submitted to the people of the United Kingdom. Gather ings of scores of thousands of men, extending from south to north, must have some great cause. Men do not leave their daily labour, the necessary occupations of their lives, thus to meet, unless they believe that there is some great question submitted to them in which they have a deep and overpower ing interest. And the question is this — Whether in future the government and the legislation of this countiy shall be conducted by a privileged class in a sham Parliament, or on the principles of the constitution of the nation, through its representatives, fairly and freely chosen 1 There are persons who will think that I am speaking harshly of the existing Parliament. Some probably in this meeting may think that Mr. Beales was indiscriminate in the term which he used when he spoke of our representa tion as being steeped in corruption ; but I am certain that if the representa- OCT. 16, 1866. REFORM. IX. 379 tion of this country existed in any other countiy, and that its details were ex plained to Englishmen, there are not five Englishmen within the bounds of England, or five Britons within the bounds of this island, who would not admit that the language he has applied to the Parliament was correct. What we charge against the Parlia ment is this — that it is chosen from constituencies not only so small that they do not and cannot adequately re present the nation, but from constitu encies so small as to be influenced by corruption, and by all kinds of motives that are neither national nor patriotic. In our boroughs, for example, the num bers for the most part are very small. There are, I think, 254 boroughs in the United Kingdom, but there are only 54 of these that possess a constituency of 2,000 electors and upwards, large and fair constituencies being always the exception. In Scotland, your borough constituencies, though not generally veiy large, are larger than those in England, and to your honour it must be said that they are far more incorrupt than English constituencies. In the counties the freeholders — those who hold land for cultivation — are constantly diminishing in numbers, and that por tion of the constituencies which is not composed of freeholders is composed of tenant-farmers — the most dependent class of occupiers, probably, in the nation. But now, let me point to one or two facts which should sink deep in the minds of all men. Out of every hun dred grown men in the United King dom eighty-four have no votes. Those eighty-four might just as well, for all purposes of constitutional government, so far as they are directly concerned — those eighty-four might as well live in Russia, where "there is no electoral system of government, or in those other countries, now very few indeed, in which Parliaments and representations are un known. If it be the fact that-only sixteen men out of every hundred have votes, it is also the fact that those sixteen are so arranged, and so placed, that their re presentation is in reality almost entirely destroyed. If the electors were fairly divided amongst all the Members, there would be nearly 2,000 electors to every Member ; but what is the state of things? It is this, that one-third of the House of Commons, or 220 Mem bers, are actually elected by 70,000 votes — that is to say, that 220 Members of the House of Commons are chosen by a number of men scattered over the countiy, who are fewer by almost one- half than the number of grown men in this city of Glasgow alone. And fur ther, one-half of the House of Commons is chosen by about 180,000 electors, being only one-seventh of the whole number of electors, and much below the number of men who are to be found in the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. And if we come to that great event which excites so much interest, but which is generally of so little value — a general election — we find, I believe, that not more than 10 in 100, not more than ten per cent, of the whole grown-up male population of the United Kingdom, ever come to the poll and give their vote for the election of a new Parliament. With regard to a general election, some of you have read, and many of you know something of the cost and corraption of a general election. I will give you one instance and one proof of it. It has been my opinion all along that it was the duty of the Government of Lord Russell, after the defeat 'of their Reform Bill during the last session, to have dissolved the Parliament. I have no reason to disbelieve what is asserted, that Lord Russell himself was of that opinion. But a general election was a burden which the Members of Parlia ment did not wish to bear. I was speaking to a Member of the Govern ment on this question about the time when the resignation of the late Go vernment . was just about to be sub mitted to the Queen, and I was telling him that I thought the true policy, the constitutional policy, of the Government was to dissolve the Parliament. A por- 38o SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 16, tion of his . answer was this : — A Mem ber who sits on our side of the House had spoken to him about it. He said, ' My election has already cost me 9,000/.' — and he added, 'I have, be sides, 3,000?. more to pay.' He said further, what was very reasonable, that this was a heavy burden, that it was grievous to be borne, that it put him to exceeding inconvenience, and, if the Parliament were dissolved, he could not afford to fight his county or his bo rough, as the case might be, but would be obliged to retire from the field, and leave the contest, if there should be a contest, to some one else. You will believe, then, that the Government were greatly pressed by this consideration ; and this consideration, added, it may be, to others, induced them to resign office rather than to dissolve Parlia ment. Thus you have a proof that whereas general corruption and putridity are the destruction of most bodies which they affect, the corruption of the present Parliament was, and is, the cause of its present existence. Now bear in mind that this state of things which I have been describing obtains at the present moment, thirty- four years after the passing of the great Reform Bill. What the Government must have been before that Bill was passed it is scarcely possible to describe or to imagine ; but I have no doubt of this, that it was one of the worst Go vernments in civilized countries, and in Europe ; and I think this may be fairly argued from the fact of the incessant wars in which the country was engaged for 150 years before that Reform; from the enormous debt that was created; from the crushing taxes that were fixed upon the people; and, worse almost than that, from that most infamous law which ever passed a Parliament of civi lized men — the law which limited the supply of bread to the people. Now, if the Clerk of the House of Commons were placed at Temple Bar, and if he had orders to tap upon the shoulder every well-dressed and appa rently cleanly-washed man who passed through that ancient bar, until he had numbered six hundred and fifty-eight; and if the Crown summoned these six hundred and fifty-eight to be the Parlia ment of the United Kingdom, my honest conviction is that you would have a better Parliament than now exists. This assertion will stagger some timid and some good men ; but let me explain myself to you. It would be a Parlia ment, every member of which would have- no direct constituency, but it would be a Parliament that would act as a jury that would take some heed of the facts and arguments laid before it. It would be free, at any rate, from the class prejudices which weigh upon the present House of Commons. It would be free from the overshadowing presence of what are called noble families. It would owe no allegiance to great land owners, and I hope it would have fewer men amongst it seeking their own gains by entering Parliament. With the Parliament which we have now and have had, facts and arguments go for very little. Take that question to which I have referred, of limiting the supply of bread to the people. The Corn-law was on the Statute-book for thirty-one years — sixteen years before the Reform Bill, and fifteen years after the passing of that Bill — but from the first hour of its enactment until the hour of its destruction the facts and the arguments against it were equally clear and equally conclusive. They would not be convinced though one arose from the dead, and .that which convinced them at last was the occurrence of a great famine in Ireland, which destroyed or drove from the countiy hundreds of thousands of the citizens of the empire. I maintain with the most perfect con viction that the House of Commons, representing as it now does counties and boroughs such as I have described, does not represent the intelligence and the justice of the nation, but the preju dices, the privileges, and the selfishness of a class. What are the results of this system of legislation? Some of them have been 1866. REFORM. IX. 3Si touched upon in that Address which has been so kindly presented to me. You refer to the laws affecting land. Are you aware of a fact which I saw stated the other day in an essay on this subject — that half the land of England is in the possession of fewer than one hundred and fifty men ? Are you aware of the fact that half the land in Scot land is in the possession of not more than ten or twelve men? Are you aware of the fact that the monopoly in land in the United Kingdom is growing constantly more and more close ? And the result of it is this — the gradual ex tirpation of the middle-class as owners of land, and the constant degradation of the tillers of the soil. Take a matter about which many Scotch farmers know something — take the perpetual griev ance of the Game-laws. In the House of Commons that question can scarcely be discussed. The landed interest, as it did in the late cattle-plague debate, tramples down Government and bo rough Members and everybody and everything that thwarts its inclination. Take the general — I am sorry to say the too general — subserviency of the tenant-farmers in the matter of elections in your country — in Scotland. I enter tain the hope that you will lead the way to the deliverance of the farmers from this slavery. In the last elections for Kincardineshire and for Aberdeenshire, the tenant-farmers have taken the poli tics of those counties into their own hands. I hope, and I believe, that the tenant-farmers of Scotland — -the most enlightened agriculturists that live on the face of the earth — I hope they, with perfect justice, and perfect courtesy to their landowners, will still exert their legitimate and right influence in the election of Members for the counties of Scotland. But take — what some of you cannot comprehend — take the helpless poverty of the farm-labourers in the southern counties of England. Their wages are very low. Their helplessness is ex treme. Their power to deliver them selves, their power to combine, seems at the lowest ebb. Look at their igno rance 1 A friend of mine— a Member of the House of Commons, who lives within six miles of the royal town and castle of Windsor, told me only the other day that he knew the case of a family near his house in which there had grown up eleven children, not one of whom could read or write at all. And he said that he had lately had in his employ upon his property seven men, of whom four could neither read nor write, two of them could read most imperfectly, and one of them could read and write about as well as the other two could read. Bear in mind that all this exists within six miles of the royal castle of Windsor. It exists in a neighbourhood where lords and squires and established clergymen swarm. Such is the state of ignorance of that population at this moment. In the county from which I come, girls of the age of from fifteen to twenty years are earning, many of them, I believe, double the weekly wages of the able-bodied farm-labourer, the head and father of a family, in some of the south western counties of England. But what must be the ignorance of that popula tion, that when such wages are offering to them in Lancashire and Yorkshire they scarcely hear of them ! They seem to have no aspiration to better their condition, and there is no sensible emi gration from these wretched counties to the more prosperous counties of the north. Your Address refers to pauperism — the gulf of pauperism. In the United Kingdom at this moment there are more' than 1.200,000 paupers. The pauperism of the United Kingdom last year — and it will not cost less, I be lieve, this year — cost the rate-payers — those who pay taxes for the relief of the poor — more than seven and a half millions sterling, and this does not in clude the cost of many thousands of vagrants who also come occasionally under the name of paupers. Now look, I beg of you, to this mass of misery. It is so great a mass that benevolence 382 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 1 6, cannot reach it. If benevolence could do it, there would be no pauperism in England, for in no country do I believe that there is more benevolence than there is in the United Kingdom. The kindness of the women of England is beyond all measure and beyond all praise of mine. There does not exist among created beings, beneath the an gelic ranks, those who are more kind and charitable than the women of the United Kingdom. But benevolence can touch scarcely the fringe of this vast disorder. There is another virtue we could add, and that virtue and that quality is justice. It is not benevolence but justice that can deal with giant evils. It was not benevolence that gave the people bread twenty years ago, but it was justice embodied in the aboli tion of a cruel and a guilty law. But justice is impossible from a class. It is most certain and easy from a nation ; and I believe we can only reach the depths of ignorance and misery and crime in this country by an appeal to the justice, the intelligence, and the virtues of the entire people. That Address has mentioned another question —the question of your national expenditure, of your army and navy ; and I will state only one fact with regard to the navy. I believe since the great war, since 1815, that the navy of this country has cost more than four hundred millions sterling. I believe that during the last six years it has cost as much as the United States navy during the same time : we have been in a condition of profound peace ; the United States have had to build or buy six hundred ships, to man them, to fur nish them with munitions of war, and to fight them during the greatest straggle that any nation ever waged. And yet at this moment, after spending so much, we have Sir John Pakington, the great reconstructor, coming into office, and promising, not to extend the liberties of the people, but to reconstruct a navy on which such enormous and countless sums have already been sunk. Then, take the taxes. Something has been done to make the taxes more equal ; but take the taxes which are levied under the name of probate and legacy and succession duties ; and I will give you a case which it is just possible you have heard before from my lips. A Member of the House of Commons — at least he was so when he gave me this fact, though I am sorry to say he is not one now — a Member of the House of Commons told me he had had left to him by a person not related to him by blood an estate in land worth 21,000/. ; the timber upon it was worth 11,000/.; altogether 32,000/. The tax, when the property is left to a person who is not a relation of the man who leaves it, is ten per cent. ; the tax there fore on 32,000/. would be 3,200/. ; and if any one of you received a legacy like that in cash, in shares, in ships, in stock-in-trade, in any of those things which are not lands and houses, he would pay 3,200/. But my friend re ceiving his legacy in land, and the timber upon it, paid just 700/. And why? For this reason only, that the law was made by a landed and pro pertied Parliament, and the owners and inheritors of lands and houses were con sidered specially worthy of its regard. But I may be asked — and no doubt some man who, after this meeting, will take up his pen to write a criticism on my speech, or upon this meeting, will ask — how comes it, if Parliament is so bad, that so many good things have been done by Parliament during the last thirty or forty years? I acknow ledge that good things have been done, and I ought to know, because I have been concerned in the doing of some of them. But by whom were they done ? Mainly by that force in Parliament which is sent there by the great and free borough constituencies of the king dom. The Members for the great towns — although but a minority, and not a very large minority — are the moving force by which these good things have been done. It has not been the policy of the Tories to do good things— and I have seen the time 1 866. REFORM. IX. 3«3 when the Whigs have been much less zealous about them than I could have wished. They have sprung from the people, and the people have canied them. What there has been of real representation in Parliament has urged these measures forward. What there has been of sham representation has uniformly opposed these measures. I am of opinion that the rich people of a countiy, invested with power, and speaking generally for rich people alone, cannot sufficiently care for the multi tude and the poor. They are personally kind enough, but they do not care for the people in the bulk. They have read a passage in Holy Writ that ' The poor ye have always with you ' — and therefore they imagine that it is a pro vidential arrangement that a small sec tion of the people should be rich and powerful, and that the great mass of the people should be hardworking and poor. It is a long distance from cas tles, and mansions, and great houses, and abounding luxuries, to the condition of the great mass of the people who have no property, and too many of whom are always on the verge of po verty. We know very well all of us how much we are influenced by the im mediate circumstances by which we are surrounded. The rich find everything just as they like. The countiy needs no reform. There is no other country in the world so pleasant for rich people as this countiy. But I deny altogether that the rich alone are qualified to legis late for the poor, any more than that the poor alone would be qualified to legislate for the rich. My honest belief is, that if we could be all called upon to legislate for all, that all would be more justly treated, and would be more happy than we are now. We should have then an average ; we should have the influence of wealth and of high cul ture, and of those qualities that come from leisure, and the influence of those more robust qualities that come from industry and from labour. Suppose now, without arguing for this or that particular measure of Re form, that we could add another million to the existing constituencies, what would be the result ? We should mo dify the constituencies. Instead of the people coming to the hustings at the nomination and holding up their hands for this candidate or that, and having for the most part no power in the elec tion, the inhabitants of the town would have a much greater power than they have now. The constituency would be less open to management than it is at present; majorities on one side or the other would be larger and less open to corraption ; and we should have Mem bers whose opinions and whose conduct would be modified by this infusion of new and fresh blood into the constitu encies which send them to Parliament. We should do this further — we should bring the rich and the great more into contact with the people, and into a better acquaintance with human wants and with the necessities and feelings of their countrymen. What other thing would happen ? I dare venture to assert this, that Parliament then would not revile and slander the people as it does now. Nor would it cheer with frantic violence when their countrymen are de scribed in hideous and hateful colours. Probably what I call the Botany Bay view of their countrymen would be got rid of, and we should have a sense of greater justice and generosity in the feeling with which they regard the bulk of the nation. And if there was more knowledge of the people, there would assuredly.be more sympathy with them ; and I believe the legislation of the House, being more in accordance with the public sentiment, would be wiser and better in every respect. The nation would be changed. There would be amongst us a greater growth of every thing that is good. May I ask if there are any ministers of religion in this audience ? I have sometimes thought that I should like to have an audience of four or five thou sand of them, to whom I could preach a political sermon, and to whom 1 could tell something which I fear their theo- 384 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. logical schools have failed to teach them. An eminent man of your coun- try> the late Dr. Chalmers, in speaking of the question of free-trade, and par ticularly of the struggle for the abolition of the Corn-laws, uttered some memo rable words. He said he thought there was nothing that would tend so much to sweeten the breath of British society as the abolition of the Com-laws. I believe now that there is nothing which would tend so much to sweeten the breath of British society as the admis sion of a large and generous number of the working- classes to citizenship and the exercise of the franchise. Now, if my words should reach the ears and reach the heart of any man who is in terested in the advancement of religion in this country, I ask him to consider whether there are not great political obstacles to the extension of civilization and morality and religion within the bounds of the United Kingdom. We believe — these ministers, you, and I — we believe in a Supreme Ruler of the Universe. We believe in His omnipo tence ; we believe and we humbly trust in His mercy. We know that the strongest argument which is used against that belief, by those who reject it, is an argument drawn from the misery, and the helplessness, and the darkness of so many of our race, even in countries which call themselves civilized and Christian. Is not that the fact ? If I believed that this misery, and this helplessness, and this darkness could not be touched or transformed, I myself should be driven to admit the almost overwhelming force of that argument ; but I am convinced that just laws, and an enlightened administration of them, would change the face of the country. I believe that ignorance and suffering might be lessened to an incalculable extent, and that many an Eden, beau teous in flowers and rich in fruits, might be raised up in the waste wilder ness which spreads before us. But no class can do that. The class which has hitherto ruled in this country has failed miserably. It revels in power and wealth, whilst at its feet, a terrible peril for its future, lies the multitude which it has neglected. If a class has failed, let us try the nation. That is our faith, that is our purpose, that is our cry — Let us try the nation. This it is which has called together these count less numbers of the people to demand a change ; and, as I think of it, and of these gatherings, sublime in their vast- ness and in their resolution, 1 think I see, as it were, above the hill-tops of time, the glimmerings of the dawn of a better and a nobler day for the coun try and for the people that I love so well. ...5S®-:....S-59... REFORM. x. MANCHESTER, NOVEMBER 20, 1866. [The following speech was made in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, at a Banquet organized by the National Reform Union. Several Members of the Liberal Party were invited to the gathering.] Although, perhaps, this is one of the most striking and important meetings which have been held in this country during the last few years, you will, per haps, be surprised to learn that I came to it with a sense almost of indifference : not indifference as to its importance; but with an absence of that feeling of responsibility which has pressed so much upon me on some recent occa sions. For the committee were kind enough to send round to their guests a list of the speakers who were ex pected to address the meeting. I found them much more numerous than is common, and I found my name about half way down the list. I took it, therefore, for granted that I could come, for once, in some degree as a spectator and a listener, rather tiian as a pro minent actor at the meeting. Some gentlemen who were expected to be here are not here — Mr. Stansfeld, be cause he is 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, ut tering the feeling of the whole 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 Govern ment Bill to say that the working-men — the aggrieved party — felt no grievance ; for they scarcely expressed any favour able opinion on the Bill, or, indeed, any opinion at all on the question of their own admission to the franchise. I was repeatedly charged with being in the position of a leader in a case, in which it was said that, after all, 1 had no clients and no following. There was a general taunt uttered that we were very much exaggerating the case of the working- men, and that the condition of that large class was so comfortable and so prosperous that they were perfectly con tent with the Government as it is carried on by a Parliament so inadequately re presenting the whole nation. 25 386 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. 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 meet ings. 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 car ried, or sensibly affected, in this country by the opinions and action of working- men alone. They point to the great meetings that have been held, and after dividing the notorious and proved mag nitude of the meetings by four or six, they then conclude that there were a few thousands of working-men present ; but Members of Parliament, manufac turers, 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 work ing-men and for working-men. If they want to know, or wanted to know, how far the main objects of those meetings receive sympathy from a more powerful class, they might have come to those meetings to have learned. In Birming ham, as you know, the Mayor was in the procession, and the Chief Constable of the town took charge of all the ar rangements for it ; and in the great Town-hall of that city, the Mayor took the chair at the evening meeting, and I venture to say that it would be impos sible 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 meeting in Manchester, and if they had gone to the Town-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, om nipotent 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 at tended. But if there was any question on this matter, I would ask those gentlemen to come on this platform to-night. Here is the largest and finest hall 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 fas tidious, would admit the term respect able 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 re spect 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 Reform 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 the 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 swamp, not only the exalted class of lords and great landowners, the 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 different 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 power, and they warn the middle class against admitting the outsiders into partnership with them, for fear they should dethrone the middle class and set up an unintelligent, un reasoning, and selfish power of their own. That is the sort of argument which 1 866. REFORM. X. 3S7 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 be 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 Reform party so dangerous and so outrageous a policy as that which these men pur sue ? 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 determina tion to exclude for ever the great body of your countrymen from the common rights of the glorious English Constitu tion. There is no greater fallacy than this — that the middle classes are in pos session of power. The real state of the case, if it were put in simple language, would be this — that the working-men are almost universally excluded, roughly and insolently, from political power, and that the middle class, whilst they have the semblance of it, are defrauded of the reality. The difference and the resemblance is this, that the working- men come to the hustings at an elec tion, and when the returning-officer asks for the show of hands, every man can hold up his hand although his name is not upon the register of voters ; every working-man can vote at that show of hands, but the show of hands is of no avail. The middle class have votes, but those votes are rendered harmless and nugatory by the unfair distribution of them, and there is placed in 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 his ancestors have gained. On a recent occasion, perhaps it was when I last stood on this platform, I stated certain facts which have not, from that day to this, been contradicted — I stated that out of every 100 men throughout the United Kingdom, grown up men, liable to taxes, expected to per form all the duties of life, responsible to the laws, 84 were excluded from the franchise, and that 16 only were in cluded. I want to ask whether the 16 out of the 100 may be said to include all the middle class ? But there is another fact, if possible more astonish ing still, and that is that three men out of eveiy 100 throughout the United Kingdom do apparently by their votes return an actual majority of the present House of Commons. But if a majority of the House of Commons be returned by 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 with the middle classes ? What Mr. Forster says is quite true. You may have suffrage — this or that, but you may have such a distribution of power that even your present represen tation, bad as it is, may be made some thing even worse. Take the case of your boroughs, in which alone may be said to rest every thing that exists in the United King dom of a free election. Divide the boroughs, 254 in number, into two classes, those under 20,000 inhabitants and those over that number. Under 20,000 there are 145 boroughs; over it 109. But the boroughs under 20,000 re turn 215 Members, against 181 that are 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 fewer than the boroughs under 20,000, still are in this position — their Members represent six times as many electors, seven times as much popula tion, and fourteen times as much pay ment of income-tax as the larger num ber of Members represent. It is clear beyond all cavil — for figures, after all, are difficult things to meet and contro vert if they are correct — that your repre sentative system, even in the boroughs 388 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. NOV. 20, 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 1832 professed to give them. Your county representation is almost too sad a subject to dwell upon. Every man who occupies a house or land of an annual value less than 50/. is ex cluded ; the number of freeholders on the whole diminishes, and really there remains scarcely anything of indepen dent power and freedom of election within the majority of the counties of the United Kingdom. So, then, I come to this 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 the power despise the middle classes for their silence under this system. When I look at the great middle class of this country, and see all that it has done, and see the political position in which it has been to some extent content to rest, I cannot help saying that it re minds me very much of the language which the ancient Hebrew patriarch addressed to one 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 per annum, raised by way of tax, to keep from starvation more than 1,200,000 paupers within the United Kingdom — and on the other hand, and higher up in the scale, there is mis management the most gross, there is extravagance die 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 mil lions, and which cajoles the middle class by the hocus-pocus of a Parlia mentary Government. Sir, I am delighted beyond measure, after many years of discussion, of con templation, of labour — in connection with this great question — I say I am delighted to believe that the great body of the' people, call them middle class or call them working class, are resolved that this state of things shall exist no longer. During the last session of Parliament there has been an honest attempt made by an honest Government to tinker the existing system. For, after all, the Bill of the 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 of a wealthy but a most penurious old gentleman, who lived some years ago in my neighbour hood, and who objected very much to a tailor's bill ; he said that he had found out that a hole would last longer than a patch. I am not sure that this is not the case with Lord Derby and his friends ; for it was one of their great arguments that if the Bill of the Go vernment passed it would inevitably follow that something more would al most 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, how ever putrid, to which they would allow the legislative reforming knife to be applied; and they determined to keep everything just as it is. And now these gentlemen, with whom we were obliged, to our great misfortune, to contend so much last session, are in office. They call themselves Her Majesty's servants ; but they have not yet dared to proclaim that they are the executive servants of the people. Some of their papers, and some papers which are 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 1866.. REFORM. X. 389 fortnight have landed us in this strange position, — that the men who were against all Reform six months ago, are now warmly 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, that the papers know nothing about it ; secondly, that the Government (we are obliged to call them a Government) has not made up its mind at all whether it will bring in a Reform Bid or not. In point of fact, Lord Derby is waiting to see what the weather will be. And I suppose they will postpone their decision perhaps for some few weeks to come. Who knows but that they will wait till this day fortnight — or yesterday fort night ? Yesterday fortnight, on Monday, the 3rd of December, it is said that, fol lowing the example of Birmingham, and the West Riding, and Glasgow, and Manchester, and Edinburgh, the men concerned in the 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 showing, 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 200,000 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 alarm 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 happened 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 repealed the Corn-law ; and why should not Lord Derby pass a Reform Bill ? Lord Derby is neither the Duke of Wellington nor Sir Robert Peel. He deserted both those eminent men in 1846, rather than unite with them to repeal theCom-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 sup port it. But it is no use dealing in phraseology and platitudes of that kind. Look at the Cabinet of Lord Derby; look what the members of it have said and done during late years, and during the late Parliamentary 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 late Government would be to hand over the country to the democracy of the working classes. Mr. Disraeli, in his speeches, was ingenious beyond his fellows, as indeed he generally is, for if he had not been so, he would not have reached the position in which we find him. But Mr. Disraeli was anxious to cut off 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 con terminous with the great estates of the peers and the great landowners, the more entirely it will be after his own fashion and his own wishes. No more perilous idea can 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 representatives 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 39° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. NOV. 20, 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 Government who proposed to disfranchise 70,000 county voters whose property was within the limits of the boroughs, and I 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 dis tribution of seats, that those votes could be made of no use to them. And Lord Stanley lent himself to an unhappy 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 Cranborne is a member of this Cabinet — Lord Robert Cecil that was a short time ago. Lord Cranborne quarrelled violently with Mr. Gladstone because Mr. Gladstone said the working-men were of our own flesh and blood. He treated that ob servation very much in the same way that the Carolinian planter and slave holder in the Senate of the United States would have replied to my friend Mr. Sumner if he had said that the black and white were equal in the eye of God, and of one flesh and blood. General Peel is a member of this Go vernment, and he protested violently 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, with 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 them selves and their party with humiliation. I know that in this country politicians change sides; office has a wonderful effect upon men. I suppose there are men here such as were described by our witty friend, Mr. Hosea Bigelow, in painting the character of some poli ticians in America. He said of them as we perhaps may say of Lord Derby and his party, — ' A merciful Providence fashioned them hollow, On purpose that they might their princi ples swallow.' But, notwithstanding that provision, that merciful provision, for statesmen, I confess that I do not believe that the Government 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 baseness of party action — to destroy the moderate and honest attempt of Lord Russell to im prove the representation. And I do not believe that in one short year they can turn round ; and, capacious as may be the internal cavity of the Tory Go vernment, I think they cannot in one short year swallow all their Conservative principles. If a man were to tell me that he had a broth composed of half-a-dozen poisonous ingredients, and that he could make of it a wholesome dish, I should not believe him. And if he tells me that Derby, and Disraeli, and Stanley, and Cranborne, and General Peel, and the rest of them, after the speeches to which I listened six months ago, are about to produce a wholesome, and salutary, and liberal Reform Bill, I must ask him not to impose for a moment on my understanding. The i866. REFORM. X. ¦91 enemies of the .Bill of 1866 cannot become the honest friends of Reform in 1867 — and the conspirators of the ses sion which has just expired cannot become honourable statesmen in the session which is about to open. My opinion may be 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 cause, and false friends enough 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 fran chise of the countiy. Household 01 rating suffrage has existed for centuries in our parishes. It has existed for many years in our municipal corpora tions. It has never been found either in parish or corporation to be destructive of the interests of the people of those circumscribed districts of the country. I say, therefore, that we ought to stand by the ancient Constitution of England. I believe Lord Russell, speaking of him in his private capacity, would be in favour of extending the borough fran chise, at least to the limits of the municipal franchise. There is reason to believe that Mr. Gladstone himself would approve of such a measure. We know that 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 believe the middle class, as a rule, the Liberal portion of the middle class, would have no objection to see the franchise extended to all householders in boroughs. I believe that, if it were so extended, we should arrive at a point at which, so long 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 wise in itself, and because it is the ancient- borough franchise of this kingdom. I am in accord with our ancient Constitution. I would stand by it ; wherever it afforded support for freedom I would march in its track. That track is so plain that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. I would be guided by its lights. They have been kept burn ing 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 bygone 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 great and noble people. ¦¦~}$%><&o~:- REFORM. XL LONDON, DECEMBER 4, 1866. [Mr. Bright was invited to preside over a great meeting of the Members of the various Trades' Unions and Trade Societies in St. James's Hall. The following speech was spoken on that occasion.] It is about eight years since, in a speech which I delivered on the question of Parliamentary Reform, that I took the opportunity of giving what I thought was somewhat wholesome counsel to the unenfranchised working-men of this country. I told them that the mono polists of political power in this country would not willingly surrender that power or any portion of it; and further, that no class which was excluded could rely upon the generosity of any other class for that justice which it could demand, and that, therefore, although, large numbers of the middle class were then, and are now, in favour of the enfran chisement of a large number of the working class, yet that they would not make that great effort which is necessary to wring political power from those who now hold it, and to extend it to those who are now and 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 bear upon it; and I recollect particularly making a suggestion that involved me in a good deal of unfriendly criticism, namely, that I thought the time had come, or would soon come, when it would be the duty of the working class to make use of that great organisation of theirs which extends over the whole countiy — the organisation of trades' and friendly societies for the purpose of bringing to bear upon the Government 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 question of Reform. Now it appears that the wholesome counsel which I gave eight years ago has become the counsel of all those who are in favour of the enfranchisement of the working-man, and that counsel 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 al ready said to-night, it is very difficult to please those by whom we are opposed ; and, as was said eight years ago, so it is said now, that it is very undesirable that associations like these, that were not formed for political purposes, should be worked for political ends. That is a matter of which the members of these societies must be held to be the best judges. We have known other societies which do not profess to be political, but DEC. 4, 1866. REFORM. XI. 393 which have entered largely into political controversy. I know that some years ago nearly all the agricultural societies of the country were converted into poli tical societies, for the purpose of sus taining an Act of Parliament which denied an honest and fair supply of food to the people of this country; and even now, when the agricultural societies and fanners' clubs meet, we have the oppor tunity of reading that curious and con fused 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 trades' unions for political purposes — is one that excites their fears, and is of a veiy formidable nature. It was precisely be cause it would be of a formidable nature that I first recommended it. The fact is, that the millions can scarcely move, but the few who are timid and in some degree ungenerous in this matter, feel themselves alarmed. You cannot help being numerous ; if you had had better government during the last hundred 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 instruc tion, and a freer trade, one-half of those in this country who are now called the working class would haye been, in com fort and position, equal to those whom we call the middle class. But this is your great difficulty now, and it is the great difficulty of our opponents — you are too numerous, they think, to be let in with safety, and they are finding 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 for midable ? These societies took no part in political movements 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 what ever there is of reasoning power in the ranks of the Tory party. Did they think that the working-men of this country — who built this great city — who have covered this country with great cities — who have cultivated every acre of its cultivated area — who have made 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 im putations 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 benefits 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 de monstration 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 ad minister to each other illegal oaths, that you should undertake the task of mid night drilling, that you should purchase throughout London and the provinces a supply of arms, that you should in this frightful and tenible 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, that injustice is no longer tolerable, then, judging from all past history of all people, one of two modes will be taken, either that mode so sad and so odious of secret con spiracy, 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 drillings, and arms, and me naces of violence and insurrection. Is 394 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 4, there any man in England who would like to see the working-men of Great Britain driven to any such course in de fence or in maintenance of their rights ? Well, I hold, then, that all men in this country, whatever be their abstract opinions on this question of a wide ex tension of the suffrage, should really rejoice at the noble exhibition, the orderly and grand exhibition of opinion which has been made by the working- 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 citizens, the native inhabitants of a countiy which is called constitutional ; and what is meant by that is that your government is not the despotic government of a mon arch, nor the oligarchical government of an oligarchy; but that it is a government, a large and essential portion of which is conducted by honestly-elected represen tatives of the people ; and the grievance is this — that this constitution, so noble in its outline and so noble in its purpose, is defaced and deformed, and that when you look at it it seems in this respect absolutely worse than any other repre sentative constitution existing in the world. For I believe there is no repre sentation whatsoever at this moment in America or in Europe that is so entirely deformed from its natural, just, and beautiful proportions, as is the repre sentative system of this country. 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 represent 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 of the House of Lords. Now, I have said before — I repeat it again — that there is no security whatso ever 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 Constitution 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 disputed that only sixteen out of every hundred men are now on the electoral rolls, and are able, all other circum stances favouring, to give their vote at a general election; and it is not dis puted that half the House of Commons — that an absolute majority of that House— is elected by a number of electors not exceeding altogether three men out of every hundred in the United Kingdom. I have taken the trouble to make a litde calculation from the facts contained in a very useful book,, published by a very • old friend of mine, Mr. Acland, called the ' Imperial Poll-Book,' from which a great amount of valuable in formation 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 Reform Bill, and I find that there being, so far as I know, at least one contest 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 fiom 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 proba- i8C6. REFORM. XI. 395 bility 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 regis tered, so far as I could make them out, at the general election of 1859, 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 are 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 bo rough which I am permitted to represent there would be no contest, and there fore 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 boioughs there is no contest because there is no freedom of election. And there are many counties 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 countiy, it is at the very utmost an appeal to 800,000 electors, and in all probability the appeal is answered by registered voters numbering from 300,000 to 400,000. After this, then, I undertake to say that the people are not, in the sense of our Constitution, a party to the laws, and that the government of the United Kingdom, in the sense indicated in the quotation that I have made from Wil liam Penn's preface to his Constitution, is not free to this people. And let me tell you, what doubtless many men have not thought of, that there is no form of government much worse than the govern ment of a sham representation. A Par liament like our Parliament has Mem bers enough, and just enough of the semblance of representation, 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 recollec tion 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 would have dared in 1S15 to have passed 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 land owners, for the express and Only pur pose of increasing their own rents 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 Act. We will only go to the last session of Par liament. 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 Parlia ment of landowners and of rich men, who have wholly despised that great na tional 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 396 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. dec. 4, resist up 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. These opponents of ours, many of them in Parliament openly, and many of them secretly in the press, have charged us with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They say we art the source of the danger which threatens ; they have absolutely the effrontery to charge me with being the friend of .public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely, if there be one thing in a free countiy more clear than another, it is that any one of the peo ple may speak openly to the people. If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them — if I speak of their danger to the monopolists of power — 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, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, 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. That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of a violent con vulsion 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 that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away and their name has been known no more for ever. If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the moun tain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe ? I did not build the moun tain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men that were in danger. So, now, it is not I who am stimu lating men to the violent pursuit of their acknowledged constitutional rights. We are merely about our lawful busi ness — and you are the citizens of a countiy that calls itself free, yet you are 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 office — 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 remember what took place in the year 1829 when the Duke of Wellington said: 'Either give po litical 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 con sented 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 1846, although every intelligent man in every country throughout the world admitted the justice and force of our arguments . against the Com-law, it still required the occurrence of a crush ing and desolating famine in Ireland — a famine which destroyed as many lives in that country as would have been i866. REFORM. XI. 397 destroyed by a great war, and which drove into exile as many of the people of that island as would have been driven into exile by the most cruel and relentless conquest — it required all tiiat 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 Parlia ment would consent to give up that intolerable wrong of taxing the bread of an industrious people. Now, sup pose that the Bill which was brought into the House last session as a Fran chise Bill only — which was done, as was admitted by Lord Russell, 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 by a Liberal and honest Government — I say, suppose that that Bill, instead of being met with every kind of unfair 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 congratulation every where; 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 would have had this result, that we, the people in these islands, would have been no longer two nations. We should have felt more — that henceforth we are one people. Every element of strength in the countiy would have been immeasurably strengthened, and there would have been given even to the humblest of the unenfranchised a feeling of hope which would 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 fidelity. 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 hon- ourableness, 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 coun try as a necessary and inevitable con sequence of that rejection. Lord Derby now stands nearest to the Throne, and I venture to say that he is 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 the just expectations of the people. I confess that I am astonished at the conduct of the Tory party in this mat ter. When the Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, it ap peared to me to be the very last that any statesman with a spark of sense or honesty could offer any opposition to, and I did not believe that on the other side of the House there was, I will say, if you like, bitter partisanship or stupi dity enough to induce them to fight a combined battle with all who would join them for the purpose of rejecting that Bill. One would suppose that the present Government 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 Irishmen, is the favoured field on which all the policy of the Tory party has been exhibited, displayed, and tried. In Ireland the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended. In- 398 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC. 4, dividual liberty, except by consent of the Executive, is abolished ; troops are pouring into the country ; iron-clads, 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 reported to be fleeing from their ancestral homes to find refuge in garrison towns ; and all this is the mag nificent result of the policy of that party whose head and hope is Lord Derby. And even now, up to this very last session of Parliament, that party has 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, greatly exaggerated, as I hope and believe, by some public writers, yet still with enough to cause pain and anxiety, was it a judi cious 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 fomentor 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 platform 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 held in Switzerland com posed of men of eminence and character, by which an address or memorial was prepared and forwarded to the Govern ment of the United States, congratulating them upon the close of their gigantic struggle. and upon the establishment of universal freedom throughout the wide bounds of the republic. There was a passage in that memorial, an expression of true philosophy and trae statesman ship, to this effect : ' Unfinished ques tions have no pity for the repose of nations.' That referred to the great question of negro slavery ; but it is just as true when it is applied to the ques tion before us, where from five to six millions of grown men in this United Kingdom, under a Constitutional Go vernment and with a representative system, are shut out directly and pur posely from that Constitution and Representation. This great question which we are debating to-night is an unfinished question, .and, as the Swiss express it, it will have no pity for the repose of this nation until it is a finished question. I observed today, in a newspaper considered by some to be of great authority, that the working-men are supposed by what are called our betters — for that paper only writes for our betters — they are supposed to have now done enough, and they are exhorted — by the very hand, probably, which during the whole of the last session of Parliament was doing all it could against them — to stand still and wait for the action of Parliament. But it is the same Parliament, it is the same House of Commons which I left with sadness and apprehension in July last. There are in it yet the men who, on our side of the House, betrayed the cause which they were supposed to sit there to defend, and the only change that we know of is, that the men who threw out with all terms of ignominy the Bill which we wished to pass last session, are now and will be in February next — if they do not break in pieces before — they will be then on the Treasury bench, and will take that leading and authoritative position in the House which belongs to the Ministers of the Crown. 1 differ from this writer altogether; I would not put any confidence in the course to be taken by this House of Commons if I were a man unenfran chised and asking for a vote. I should like them to tell -me that they had wholly repented of the cheers with which they met all those vile and violent imputations upon your character. My opinion is this : that your duty, your obvious duty — a duty from which you cannot escape — is to go on as you have begun, to perfect in every part of the country your organisation in favour of your enfranchisement. It is to bring 1 866. REFORM XI. 399 every society with which you are con nected, to give itself for a time — it will only be a short time — to the working out of your political redemption. I should advise you, whether you are supporters of the Reform League in London, or are connected in any way with the Reform Union of Manchester or any similar association, to establish a system of small, but weekly or monthly contributions. Do not allow my friend Mr. Beales — or my ancient friend and political brother, Mr. George Wilson of Manchester — do not allow them to want the means to carry on and direct the great societies of which they are chiefs. And let me beg of you, more than all else, to have no jealousies amongst each other. Give our Chair man his due ; give Mr. Beales and the council their due ; give every man who, with a single eye to this great question, is working zealously in your cause, his due, and help in every way you can every honest endeavour to bring this great national question to such a solid and final issue, that it shall no longer disturb the repose of this nation. And lastly, I beg of you to rise to something like a just contemplation of what the great issue is for which you are contending. It is to make you citizens of one of the noblest nations on the face of the earth — of a nation which has a grand history in the past, and which I trust, partly through your help, will have a still grander history in the future. Let me beg of you, then, and it is the last woid I may speak to you to night, that, in all you do, you may be animated by a great and noble spirit, for you have set your hands and hearts to a great and noble work. ~«!>^- REFORM. XII. VOTING-PAPERS. HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 20, 1867. From Hansard. [The Government Reform Bill proposed to permit the vote to be given by ' Voting- papers,' and not to require personal attendance at the Poll. This was objected to by the Opposition on the ground that it would afford opportunity for fraud and for practices inconsistent with freedom of election. The Government proposition was rejected.] I think the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has con cluded his speech with perfect fairness, and left the decision to the House in a way worthy of the position he oc cupies. The debate has been one of considerable satisfaction to me, for whatever I may think of the proposition as it now stands, I cannot conceal from myself the fact that the arguments both on this and on that side of the House lead us a great deal further than the proposition itself; and should end, after this wide extension of the suffrage, in a change which in almost every other country has been made — namely, in establishing the vote by ballot. There are two divisions of this question, and to one of them the right hon. Gentle man applied himself; and other Mem bers also touched upon the same — that is, with regard to out-voters. I believe, if we were establishing a system of representation for the first time, that we should do in counties what we do in boroughs^— we should take care that all the electors of the counties should be resident in the counties. A different system prevails, and I do not recommend that it should be interfered with ; but I suggest that you should not, for the purpose of aid ing the extension of the present system ¦by adding to the non-resident voters, make a substantial change for which no substantial reason has been given. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets has made a speech — one of the best and the most convincing that I have heard on the subject. He referred to what might be done by certain per sons at certain Clubs. The Reform Club is veiy near the Carlton. If a man wants to go to one he is driven, not invariably, but occasionally, to the other. What the hon. Gentleman says might be done at the Reform Club might also be done at the Carlton. But what has been done? Take the case of a small Scotch county in which there JUNE 20, 1867. REFORM. XII. 401 was a contest at the last election. The losing candidate had a decided majority of the resident voters in the county, and yet he did not take his seat in this House, and this through the influence of large proprietors — and of strangers whose votes might be called in question as contrary, if not to the letter, to the spirit of the law. These voters over ruled the votes of the resident con stituency, and the candidate who had the majority of the resident votes was defeated, and his opponent is, I pre sume, at this moment sitting somewhere in this House. [Cries of ' Name.'] Let any Gentleman who wants to know the name ask the Scotch Member who sits nearest him. I trust that the decision of the House this session, and the passage of this Bill, will lead to a more satisfactory representation of the countiy. I there fore hope that there is no Member of the House who would wish to see the system I have just described indefinitely extended. And I am not speaking as against the influence of landed pro prietors alone; there are other in fluences that can play this game. I recollect some years ago, during the discussion on the Corn-laws, that the friends of the Anti-Corn-law League resolved to purchase freeholds in some counties, and threatened to change the representation of those counties. In a case like that it would be a great bar to such a movement, that every voter, at the time of an election, should travel to the county where his freehold was situate. It is not the true policy of the country — it is contrary to the in terests of the country — it is opposed to the purity and reality of the electoral system, that you should give even to an eminent lawyer like" the hon. and learned Gentleman on the front bench, or to any landlord or club, any greater induce ment than now exists to obtain votes in counties where people do not reside, for the purpose of interfering with the real and honest representation of the resi dents of the county. There are many small counties— some in England, some in Wales, and several in Scotland — in which there would be no difficulty, under this system, of placing as many persons on the register as would defeat the honest rights of the electors of those counties. The right hon. Gentleman dwelt on the success of the system as tried in the Universities ; and some Gentlemen smiled because they thought he meant — what I am sure he did not mean — that it had proved suc cessful in dislodging a late Member for the University of Oxford. But that is a small matter; and, if England were appealed to, England would say that it is of great advantage to the country that that dislodgement has taken place. But while the right hon. Gentleman defends the measure on account of its success at Oxford University, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich admitted that the case was so entirely different that he would not base his argument in favour of the Bill on any thing that had happened, or could happen, in connection with the learned Universities of the country. The Com mittee on which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, sat, had the whole of the matter before it ; and that Com mittee saw the great difference between the circumstances of the Universities and of the great constituencies of the country; and they distinctly — I know not if they were unanimous — rejected the proposition in regard to the countiy at large, and decided on special grounds that the plan might only be safely adopted in regard to the Universities. I now pass to the other branch of the subject. My own belief is that it is bad. It seems to me that it has not the good effect — and I have never denied that there is some good in the system — of open voting. It escapes from that which you have always claimed as the great advantage of open voting, that is, the general publicity and influence of public opinion, and what you call the 'salutary effect of a man performing a great public duty in the face of his fellow-men. It is clear that the whole of that is got rid of by 2(5 402 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 20, his system. [Cheers and cries of ' No.'] It is clearly got rid of so far as this system will, work. The right hon. Gentleman calls it a permissive Bill. Of course, to indi viduals it is permissive, but on the whole country it can hardly be so styled. Wherever, being permissive, it is employed, it will entirely secure the voter from that public opinion under which every man in some degree acts when he goes to the poll and gives his vote in the face of his fellow-electors and townsmen. On the other hand, I complain of it very much, on this ground: that whilst it altogether shelters him from public opinion, it does not in the least give him the ad vantages of secret voting. The advan tages of the really secret vote are these. You may estimate them at less than I do, but 1 think they are these — that when a man votes there is no power on earth to. interfere with him but his own conviction .as to , what he ought to do, and he has a perfect freedom to cany out these convictions in his vote. Now, a proposition which is so great a change that it repudiates all which you have said to be good in open voting, and does not accept a single particle of the good which we have said belongs to secret voting, at least is not a pro position which should be accepted, hastily by the House. The right hon. Gentleman, following the example of many hon. Members, dwelt upon the expenses of county elections. I think those expenses are most deplorable. I was speaking to a Gentleman in this House, the other day who said he was a candidate for ten days in a county which is neither very large nor very populous, and in those ten days his expenses were, 4,000/. I know another candidate — I think I am not mis-stating the facts— who polled 2,000 votes, and they cost him 8,000/. But that expense is by no means all con nected with, the carriage of voters ; a veiy large portion is connected with that hateful and intolerable system of agency, which is, I believe, all but universal in the counties, and which unfortunately prevails to a very large extent in a great number of boroughs. But there cannot be the smallest doubt that it is possible to cure that evil with out this clause. With regard to the resident voters of a county, you might establish — and establish cheaply — poll ing-booths in so many districts that no . man will have to go farther than he has to go every week to market, and very often he would have to go no farther than he goes on Sunday to church. The noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Lord Cranborne), who made as good a speech as could be made in favour of this clause, spoke of persons who could not get to the poll — sick people and nervous people. I am not speaking of the sick, because we ought not to make special laws for a compa ratively small portion of the people, and those who are sick are much better in their rooms and in bed, than taking any part whatever in the excitement of - a contested election at a time when they are suffering mental and bodily depression. The noble Lord said there are many who do not go to the poll. I think he is entirely mistaken. I have had several contests in the course of my political career. Two contests in the city of Durham, two or three in the city of Manchester, and one at least in the town of Birmingham. I do not believe that any appreciable number — I cannot say that I ever heard of ten, nor even five, in the whole of these three constituencies — who could not go to the poll for any of the reasons stated by the noble Lord. There is not the slightest doubt that his argument does not apply to the metropolitan boroughs, because if there are any boroughs which are free from confusion and riot it is those boroughs. Therefore, I hold that as regards this safeguard there is nothing in it. But there is this in it. The noble Lord appears to be wishful — I will not im pute that, but I will say that it will be understood that he would establish a 1867. REFORM. XII. 4°3 system which would very nearly give the security of the Ballot to the rich people, and that it is for them that this system is mainly devised. I must leave hon. Gentlemen opposite to ima gine how long it will be, if this class is adopted, before the Ballot itself will be established amongst all other classes. Now, as regards the poorer electors. My hon. Friend (Mr. Ayrton) described what would take place with agents. There is a wonderful fertility of inven tion at election times, and clever agents would busy themselves in the streets of our boroughs, and in some parts of the counties, with a view of obtaining these polling-papers. And what happens when they have been signed and sent in ? You establish one of the most hateful and most un heard-of things that can be imagined, which is the giving of votes by proxy. I understand that lately there has been a discussion in another place on the subject of voting by proxy, and there is a general impression that this system — which no man defends upon any prin ciple — will not last long. Therefore, I hope the House of Commons will not now attempt to establish in any shape anything so unprincipled and hateful with regard to our parliamen tary elections as this would prove to be. Because, when any person has re ceived a number of voting-papers from any borough or part of a county, it is quite clear that he can either poll them or not, as he thinks fit. He can hold them back, or make a traffic of them. They are not exactly bank notes; but as he holds them in his hand, he. may traffic with them as if they were, bank notes. Now, I think it ' Better to bear the ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of.' I think the noble Lord, or at all events some hon. Members, have spoken of the character of magistrates. I am not a magistrate myself, and I should be sorry to depreciate or lower their character in this House or in the country ; but there is nothing that stands, as I can see, between the present system of voting for Poor-law guardians, and this, but the magistrates. The magistrates are not infallible. I have known many magis trates who were not at all too acute to be taken in. And I think the security- is not sufficient to justify the House in making the great change proposed. The noble Lord made another obser vation, which was very unfortunate for him, and I am surprised that it should have escaped his lips. He went so far as to say that the drawing-room of the magistrate would be the place of the polling-booth. If I am not very much mistaken in the opinion of my country men, I think that observation will sink very deep into their minds and hearts ; and if they thought such a thing were possible — and we have the authority of the noble Lord that it is .advisable, and that he admires it — I say that is enough to condemn the Bill. The question is this — whether our whole system of poll ing should be changed to what is right, or whether it should be a general system of voting through the Post Office. My own impression is, that every man who gives a vote should appear before the recognised authority by whom that vote shall be recorded — whether he gives it openly, by saying, ' I am So-and-so, and I have voted for A, B, C, or D,' or whether. he. should vote as Englishmen do in the Australian colonies, by de positing a card or ticket. I, saw one hon. Member anticipating what I was going to say by the radiant smile which came over his countenance. But I am not now asking for the Ballot. What I say is this. I prefer what now exists to what -you propose. Either let us have the open voting which we have, and which we all understand, and which we have had from time immemorial, so that we understand the good and evil of it; or let us go to that more excellent way of polling by the Ballot. At least, do not let us make a change, the results of which would, in my opinion, lead to very great danger in the corrupt exercise of the franchise throughout the country. The hon. Gentleman the Member for 26 — 2 4°4 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 20, Middlesex- has to-night made a curious speech — and he treated very lightly the argument which had been used, that if a man had given his voting-paper seven days before an election in the county, and three days before in the borough, he should not be at liberty to change his mind. No doubt in the borough he could try to outwit his proxy, by being at the poll when it opened at eight o'clock in the morning, and then it would be a scuffle between him and his proxy as to the vote to be given; but generally speaking, there are many persons who honestly change their minds between the time when the elec tion is proclaimed and the time that it takes place. [' Oh !'] Hon. Members do not appear to believe that there is any honest change of opinion. I differ from them very much, and if Members of the House of Commons by vast bodies can change their opinions at once on a question, there can be no doubt whatever that electors are equally open to proper arguments. Take a case. Between the time when an elec tion is proclaimed and the day fixed for the polling, very often a new candi date comes into the field. Then, there is often something found out about a candidate in the field which makes him unsatisfactory to the constituency; or some person comes into the field, and by a speech of great power affects the votes- of many electors. Yet by this system a man may have within seven days of the election in the county, and three days of the election in the borough, signed this fatal voting-paper; he is committed to it, and he is not even open ' to the discussion for which I understand your hustings are erected and maintained. I say hon. Gentle men opposite ought by reason of their ancient principles not to support this proposition. The Chancellor of the Exchequer concluded his speech by saying that he would take the decision of the House on this matter, and I thought that I observed on the countenance of his sup porters a feeling of satisfaction, as if probably they would be glad to relieve the Government of the clause altogether. Hon. Gentlemen have often said that they do not like anything un-English. I shad not use that phrase, because if I were to reiterate it, I might say with great force that hardly anything can be more un-English than to have a system of this kind which is to be permissive. Some have argued in favour of the per missive Ballot. I must say that I have always been opposed to the permissive Ballot. Let a question of this kind work in the public and parliamentary mind, and do not change until you are determined to do the thing honestly and well. Then let it be made legal and imperative — and do not let us have anything like permissive action on a great and solemn question like this. The noble Lord below me (Lord Elcho) made a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman ; I -should be very glad to see the clause negatived, and I should not be opposed at any future time to the appointment of a committee to con sider the whole question of our electoral system. There are many alterations which might be made in that system, and to which I think the House might agree with very great advantage. At present, however, it seems to me quite clear, and beyond ad" doubt, that in this Bill we ought not, and I believe we shall not, insert a clause which will make this great change, on which there has been no inquiry except that in i860, which inquiry resulted in an emphatic condemnation of the system. I say that the country has not asked for this. The right hon. Gentleman says he thinks that it will be received with very great favour. He is so fond of his own children that he supposes everybody wiU admire the political offspring he introduces into this House. I think I have met a good many persons during the past four or five months who know something about Reform ; but I declare that I never met with a single person outside this House who did not speak of this proposal — I am afraid to use the term, because I do not wish to deny 1867. REFORM. XII. 4°5 that the clause has been very fairly in troduced — who have not spoken of the proposition with contempt ; and I be lieve if it were adopted, that it would create amazement and consternation throughout the country. I shall say no more. I admit that the right hon. Gentleman has argued the question fairly from his point of view, and has put it before the committee in a manner that became him. The matter is one of very grave importance. The only result will be, if we reject the clause, that the question will stand where it is, and it will be open to the Government, Or to any Member of the House who differs from me, to propose, either this session or next session, a select committee to inquire into the whole question. In conclusion, there fore, I beg the committee not to commit itself to a thing which nobody asks for, which is entirely novel with regard to the great constituencies of the country, and which I, from no party view what soever [' Oh, Oh ! '] — I do not think there has been a single argument or fact used to-night to show that it would be advantageous to hon. Gentlemen oppo site more than it would be to this side of the House ; therefore, I declare solemnly I have no feeling of that kind ; — but I believe it would introduce a very evil system into a system which is now, in some respects, very good ; and therefore I entreat the House to reject the clause which the right hon. Gentle man has submitted to them. REFORM. XIII. HOUSE QF COMMONS, AUGUST 8, 1867. From Hansard. [An attempt was made during the passing of the Reform Bill through the House of Commons to insert in it a clause interfering with the ancient rights of majorities in the constituencies. It was rejected by a large majority, Mr.. Disraeli and the Govern ment party opposing it. A somewhat similar clause was inserted by the House of Lords, and was, agreed to by the Commons, Mr. Disraeli and his friends now support ing what they had before strenuously opposed. This speech was delivered in the debate on the Lords' Amendments.] I was rather surprised at the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chan cellor of the Exchequer upon this point, when I recollected the speech which he delivered when the same matter was before the House some few weeks ago. He concluded his speech by admitting that his views had not changed. That I knew without his saying it. It would be impossible for any person holding the view he held on a former occasion, and seeing the subject so clearly, to have changed his mind upon the matter. If the House will permit me — though, perhaps, I am leading a forlorn hope after the desertion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer — I will recall for a mo ment to the House what has taken place on this point. The right hon. Gentle man the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) proposed a mode of giving Members in these large boroughs to that minority which is alleged now to be unrepre sented. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was different from that which has -come down from the House of Lords ; but although it was different it really had the same object, and, doing it in a different way, would have brought about the same result. [Mr. Lowe : ' No ! '] The right hon. Gentleman says 'No.' I do not say it would bring about the same result with the same amount of minority in any borough. But the general result would have been the same. Whether you take Liver pool, Manchester, Birmingham, or Leeds, the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman would have given to minorities a re presentation .in this House, which is precisely what in all probability will be done by the clause which has come down from the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman — and I ask hon. Members on this side of the House to bear this in mind — acting in precise accordance with the noble and learned Lord in the Upper House by whom this change was proposed, sug gested his change as a corrective of the AUGUST 8, 1867. REFORM. XIII. 407 liberal, or probably he would have said democratic, character of the Bill before the House. He did not propose it as a portion of a grand scheme to give to every person in the country, whether one of a minority or one of a majority, a representative in this House, but as a proposal made necessary by the ex travagant and perilous character of the Bill which the Chancellor of the Ex chequer has introduced, and which has been supported with so much good-will by hon. Gentlemen on that as well as on this side of the House. That pro posal was supported by the noble Lord the Member for Stamford (Viscount Cranborne), — who has been perfectly consistent in everything he has done on this question, — and by all those Gentle men opposite who differ from the Go vernment with regard to the question of Parliamentary Reform. It was also ¦ supported by certain Members on this side who are in favour of representing minorities— not because it is the correc tive of a democratic measure, -but be cause they think that everybody should be represented. I understood that the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Mill) took that view. He, in a long and very able, though I must say, arising probably from the nature of the subject, in a somewhat intricate speech, explained it as the plan proposed by Mr. Hare. But that plan is by no means a plan of representing minorities. It is a plan for representing everybody, in a peculiar way, and probably could not be accomplished by any other plan offered to the country. I think we have a right to complain of the hon. Member for Westminster and his friends, not that they are in favour of representing everybody, but that they are in favour of a proposal like this, which really does not represent everybody, but strikes off a large por tion of the representative power which the population of this countiy enjoys ; and does not effect in any degree that which my hon. Friend and his friends wish to be done by the establishment of Mr. Hare's system. It appears to me that they have been taken — I want a suitable word to express my contempt for the proposal without expressing in the slightest degree anything - offensive to hon. Members on this side ; no man can conceive for a single moment that the hon. Member for Westminster, in the view he has held on this question, has been actuated by any but the most honourable motives, perfectly consistent with everything he has written or said on the subject — but I say they have been taken by the phrase that in these four great boroughs you are about to give to the minorities a power which they do not now possess. They there fore see in it, in some small degree, an approach to, or the admission of, a prin ciple or of a plan which my hon. Friend and his friends support, in which every body would be represented, and such things as majorities and minorities no longer known. I think those Gentlemen who are in favour of Mr. Hare's plan are not in the slightest degree bound to support this plan. There is no intention at present on the part of the Government, or on the part of this House, or of the House of Lords, or of any one in the countiy, to establish Mr. Hare's plan in this countiy. Carrying therefore this proposal only,' or anything likely to follow this, is an unmixed injustice to the boroughs thus treated, is not likely to lead to the plan of Mr. Hare being adopted, and in all probability will create so much ill-will in a large borough to which it may be applied, that we may be farther than ever from taking Mr. Hare's plan into considera tion. When this question was formerly before the House of Commons the division was one of a very remarkable character. There were some Members on this side voted with some Members on the other side. There was a majority of 140 against the proposal. The Chan cellor of the Exchequer made a speech on that occasion more earnest and full of feeling than any other speech he has made during the protracted discussion on this Bill. But the right hon. Gentle- 408 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST 8, man now says the proposal was carried by a great majority in the House of Lords. The majority there was but 90 — here it was 140. A majority so large on a question which so particularly affects us and our constituencies — a majority of 1 40 — is much more import ant in a matter of this kind than a majority of 90 in the other House. I do not recollect the precise words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I think he said it was a scheme to introduce into the House all sorts of crotchety people. I have no objection to crotchety people. I believe there must be all sorts of people in this House. I have never been in any Par liament in which there has not been at least one Member generally believed by the rest of the Members to be not quite strong — and excuses were made for his eccentric conduct because he was not as responsible as others. That, probably, will always be the case in the House of Commons. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he did not want the introduction of crotchety people, but he condemned the proposal on stronger grounds, on grounds of the highest policy and constitutional principles. The Gentlemen I see opposite, and those not before convinced — as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ox fordshire (Mr. Henley) was — accepted the arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I cannot presume to say that they were influenced by my argu ments, although I offered them with as much force as I could. I think the arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were unanswerable. Then what did Lord Derby say in the House of Lords ? I presume we can speak of exalted persons who send Amendments down here from an exalted place. Lord Derby said the principle was entirely unconstitutional, and that 'its mischief would only be bounded by the extent or the narrowness of its operation.' I shall not pretend to have a greater reverence for Lord Derby than hon. Gentlemen opposite have ; I have often thought him rash ; I have often thought him unwise ; and I have often had occasion during twenty-four years of political life to be in opposition to his views. But I think when he, as Prime Minister, having considered this question of Reform minutely since last session, expresses so strong an opinion on a point of this nature, is backed by the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and of his friends, and is backed by a vote of more than 300 — I forget how many voted, but the ma jority was 140 — I have a right to state that his opinion as Prime Minister on a matter of this nature is -one we should not lightly pass by. I think hon. Gentlemen opposite, if they will bear in mind the tone of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will feel that he adhered to his original opinion, and would have preferred that the House of Lords had not made the alteration. I think they may feel that they will only be carrying out what is for the true interest of the country, and what is the true wish of the Government, if they adhere to the vote they gave when the question was before us on a former occasion. I said I thought our vote of more importance than that of the House of Lords. I do not pretend to say the House of Lords has not full power to consider this Bill and pass amendments upon it. They have the legal and the constitutional power to do that, and we have no right to call it in question. But in a matter affecting the funda mental principles of our representation, affecting the power of our representa tives — of a considerable number of the Members of this House — affecting the status of Members of this House— the opinion and vote of the House of Com mons is necessarily and must be of more weight than the vote of the House of Lords. It is a question of delicacy. It is possible that the House of Lords would not enter into any contest with regard to this, and that whatever the House of Commons may decide to do will be accepted with that moderation and dignity to which the right hon. Gentleman has paid — as he believes, 1867. REFORM. XIII. 409 and as I hope — so just a tribute. What is the change you are about to make ? It is a fundamental change. There is no precedent for it in our Parliamentary history. You affect by it the very foun dation of what I may call -the constitu tion of your constituencies. I have said elsewhere that the altera tion proposed has never been asked for. The hon. Member for North Warwick shire (Mr. Newdegate), I understand, presented a petition in favour of it from Birmingham. I am sorry it should come from Birmingham — that there should be a petition from Birmingham signed by a number of persons in fa vour of the change. [Mr. Newdegate : ' 4,000 ! '] Well, I will not dispute about numbers in regard to a town of 400,000 inhabitants. That is not an overwhelming consideration, especially as the 4,000 have just smarted from a defeat — I will not say an ignominious one, for it was not ignominious. At all events they have not been able to seat a Member for the minority, having been outvoted by their fellow-townsmen. I am sorry that men who were unable to return their candidate for Birming ham by a fair majority should eome and ask this House, in obedience to the mandate of the House of Lords, to allow him to take his seat by the votes of the minority. With the exception of that case this proposal has -never been asked for from the House of Com mons, by any constituency, by petition, or at any public meeting. Never has there been a minority defeated fairly — I speak not of drink, or coercion, or bribery, and corruption — who did not accept that defeat in a fair spirit, and look forward to the time when, by the growth of their opinions and of their numbers, that minority would ultimately become a majority. For six hundred years — as far as our Parliamentary annals go back, and one of the learned Clerks at the table can tell us how far they go back — the prin ciple of Parliamentary election has been this, that the majority of the voices of a constituency to which the writ of the Crown has issued should elect a Mem ber or Members to sit in this House, and no others. Bear this in mind. You are urged to accept a proposal of a most important character, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has de nounced in the strongest language, of which Lord Derby says the mischief can only be bounded by the narrowness of its operation — when it has never come before the public for discussion. In all the discussions which have taken place this year or last year, at all the meetings which have been held, under roof or the open sky, there has been no debate, discussion, or consideration of the principle now offered to us in this clause as it has come down to tljis House. I would suggest, without un fairly urging my views, that the House of Commons should at least suspend its judgment in favour of this proposal until it has been a longer period before the country, and the constituencies have -had an opportunity of considering it and making up their minds upon it. It is often said that we are not dele gates ; but if we are not delegates, we are not rulers. We are sent here to represent the general views of our con stituents. We have morally no power to cut off the influence of those con stituents — to make fundamental changes in the Constitution, and to vary, alter, and overthrow the practice of six hun dred years. This House is not in favour of it ; a majority of 140 voted against it. You have no moral right, therefore, to agree to such a proposal, because a House which is not represen tative, which has no direct influence in the matter, and no Member of which can vote for a Member of this House, or without the infringement of our rules influence a vote at his election, chooses to suggest it. It is an unintelligible and unbelievable thing that this House should under these circumstances agree to a proposal which makes this funda mental change in our Constitution, which alters and cripples the power of four of the largest constituencies in the kingdom. What are these four con- 410 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST 8, stituencies you are asked thus to treat ? I appeal to the Chancellor of the Ex chequer ; I know some of the difficulties of his position. Still he is accessible to reason, and he has been disposed to take the House very much into his con fidence. If a census were taken, those four boroughs would be found to con tain a population of nearly, if not quite, 1,500,000. What was done when the Bill was passing through Committee? It was proposed that an additional Member should be given to several boroughs. First of all, six boroughs were proposed for this honour. The number was afterwards limited to four. The hon. Member for Liverpool pro posed that three should have an addi tional Member. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a moment of very good humour, got up at the table and said, ' Not three, but four additional Mem bers shall be given.' He not only re ceived the proposal handsomely, but he dealt with it generously, and gave four Members to four of the largest boroughs. Look at those four boroughs. There is Liverpool, with its commercial inter ests, and with perhaps the largest port in the world. Look at Manchester, with its 400,000 population, and vast manufacturing interests. Look at Bir mingham, the very centre and heart of the island, also with a population ¦ of 400,000, and with interests which I need not describe, because they are well known to the House. Look at Leeds, the centre and capital of the county of York. [Mr. Leeman : ' No, no 1 '] My hon. Friend the Member for York is quite at liberty to dispute that ; -still the House will not say that I have over charged the picture in describing these four boroughs. They asked the House to grant them additional representation. They wanted more than one new Mem ber. They said that their population was great, their interests beyond arith metical computation, and their influence in the country large. They asked the House for greater representation. The House unanimously consented, for I will undertake to say there was as much satisfaction on that side as there was on this, when the Chancellor of the Ex chequer said that he would give these additional Members to the four boroughs I have named. If it were a question of minorities, I might say to my hon. Friend behind me and to others, There are these 1,500,000 in those four boroughs who are , now represented by eight Members only, and if this Bill passes they will have twelve Members only; — I am not speaking whether they sit on that side of the House or this — I believe my opinion would be ex actly the same, and just as strong, if I represented any other- of the boroughs, as it is representing Birmingham. As the Bill comes from the Upper House'these four boroughs would have twelve representatives, and when there was a great question -before the country — as for example the question of the character of the administration, or the question of a further -change in Parlia mentary representation, or the condition of Ireland — and I might mention many other questions in which the case would arise — these twelve Members would be eight on one side of the House and four on the other, and the four on the one side would, ¦ of course, neutralize four out of the eight sitting on the other. So that, assuming party ties to be adhered to, these four boroughs with a million and a half of population would be so entirely emasculated and crippled by the proposal now submitted to the House, that really only four names would be found affecting any of those great questions to which I have referred. I do not think anybody is prepared to deny that statement. I put it the other day at Manchester in this way — that the borough of Sal ford, which is only part of Manchester, is to return two Members under this Bill, and that Manchester itself is to return three Members. But nothing can be more clear than this — that in all great divisions in this House henceforth, if this proposal be admitted, the voice of Manchester will be less potent than the voice of Salford. I say that is REFORM. XIII. 411 utterly at variance with all the prin ciples of representation, and with the whole practice of the Constitution of this country. But what can the House say to these boroughs? When the Chancellor of the Exchequer accepted the proposal of the hon. Member for Liverpool, and when the House entirely agreed with him, and when these bo roughs expressed the. great satisfaction which they felt at the mode in which they had been treated, there was not a single syllable said that in giving these new Members you were to give them in such a manner as should not increase, but should actuaUy diminish their power in this House. There is no case . on record in the annals of Parliament in which a borough, however small in point of Members and contemptible in influence in comparison with these I have mentioned, has ever been treated in a manner so unfair, so ungenerous, and so unjust. I can speak for Man chester, and I can speak for Birming ham, and I say that the great majority of the present, and the proposed future constituents — nay, a great majority. of the population of these two great towns, would have rejected, as I certainly should have voted against, the proposal that additional Members were to be given to them — if I had believed the House would only consent to give more Members under this crippling and in jurious clause. There is one other point before I have done, and I put this to hon. Mem bers. We have a preliminary elec tion which is called the nomination. We have the hustings, the candidates, the electors, and the population all gathered round. The name of every candidate is submitted to the electors, and every elector who is present is called upon by the returning officer to hold up his hand in favour- of the can didate of his choice. If there be no contest, and nobody demands a poll, the lifting up of the hand is made the actual and conclusive election of the Members. How are you to reconcile that constitutional practice with this unconstitutional innovation? Here is a man who can vote in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, or Leeds at the hustings for three candidates — three Liberals or three Conservatives — I have nothing to do with party in this matter, and I should think it contemptible to introduce a question of party into it. That man at the hustings will hold up his hand for the three candidates he wishes to be elected. When he goes to the poll, should one be demanded, following out the constitutional process already began, he ought to be able to vote for all the Members to be elected, but under this system he is- only to vote for two. Therefore, you establish an ex traordinary and entirely novel and uncon stitutional difference and discrepancy between the preliminary election at the hustings and the subsequent and final election at the pod. What you are wanting to do is a thing which is absurd upon the face of it. You take a constituency which has always hitherto been held to be a united and compact body, and you propose that it should return two voices at one election, and that by an arrangement ordered, not by this House, but recom mended by the other House of Parlia ment, this constituency is to speak in two voices — one end of the constituency shall be allowed to say this, and the other end shall be allowed to say that. There are jugglers whom we have seen exhibiting their clever tricks — pouring out port, champagne, milk, and water from one and the same bottle. The proposal resembles this. The scheme is, that an electoral body, by a peculiar contrivance hitherto unknown, and I will undertake to say, if ever heard of, only despised, shall not be asked, but shall be made to do this — to return two Members to sit on this side and one on the other, or vice versa. We are told that the result will be admirable, because we shall put an end to animosities, contests, and the expen diture of elections — in fact, nothing is to be so charming as the tranquillity and good-humour to prevail in all these 412 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. AUGUST 8j boroughs. But look at Huntingdon. There has been the greatest tranquillity in that borough for the last thirty years. Ever since the right hon. Gentleman (General Peel) went there, I believe there has been hardly a single contest. In all that time nothing can be more admirable than the way things have been managed. But Huntingdon is not a centre of political life. If all the boroughs of England were like Hunt ingdon, the political life of the country would be extinguished — its freedom would be extinguished — and when once England's freedom has gone, I wonder what there would be left in the country worth preserving. One word of caution, if the House will permit me, before I close. You are about to give to many hundred thousands of your countrymen, not hitherto possessing it, a vote for a representative in Parliament. Lord Derby said last night, or a night or two ago, in the House of Lords, that you were taking a leap in the dark, and he trusts somehow or other that the ground upon which you are about to alight will be soft, and that you will not be much injured. But you are ad mitting this number of persons who have never hitherto had a vote in bo roughs, and you ought to be guided by the ancient principles of the Constitu tion, by those principles which have been laid down for us by our ancestors and forefathers. You want those you are admitting to the franchise to be guided by the ancient principles of the Constitution in all that they do when they have power, in order that they may not depart from that great chart which I hope in some degree they have studied, and which was laid down by our forefathers in this House. Suppose you depart from it in this matter that we are now discussing, and introduce some thing entirely novel, something that cannot be defended by argument for nobody in my opinion has ever attempted to defend it — the Chancellor of the Ex chequer never heard of an argument about it which he thought worth answer ing — if you introduce something so en tirely novel and so offensive, is it not possible that those who will have the power after this Bill passes may think also that there are many fantastic things which they might do, and doing them would be as much justified as the House is now in doing this ? When I have addressed great meet- . ings of my countrymen I have always advised them to adhere strongly to that which is constitutionaUy and morally right. If they at any future time, whilst I am in Parliament or in any degree of prominence before the countiy, attempt to do things with regard to your class or order which I believe to be morally or constitutionally wrong, I shall be as firm in opposing them as I have been in supporting the rights which they have demanded. And I lament over the possibility of such a proposal as this being acceded to, because I am 'certain that it will afford an example hereafter to. those who may wish to follow, not in this precise direc tion, but in some other direction which they may equally justify, but which may be very perilous and injurious to the country. I enter my protest against this proposal on all grounds. I enter it as one of the Members for a great constituency to which the other day you offered an additional Member, and from which you are now about to take one- half of their present political power. I say that constituency would prefer that the Member you are about to give it had been given to Keighley, St. Helen's, Barnsley, or Luton, as first proposed, than that it should be given under such conditions as you now wish to impose. I saw 5,000 men only two nights ago in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. It was not a packed meeting. Every body in Manchester had a right to go. I believe about 1,000 paid to do so, and 4,000 or 5,000 went in free. They unanimously passed a Petition that has been presented to-night by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, and in it they prayed the House to do one of three things. They asked that either 1867. REFORM. XIII. 413 the borough might be divided as in the case of Glasgow — and why should Glas gow be in a better position as to its third Member than Liverpool, or Bir mingham, or Manchester, or Leeds? — or that the majority should decide the election as at present, or, failing either of these courses, that the House should withdraw the fatal gift of an additional Member who is merely to be paired off against one of their present Members. Will you refuse that Petition? Has there ever been a case like this in the annals of the English Parliament, where a great constituency besought you not to confer upon them additional represen tation , because you were going to give it in a manner notoriously destructive of then existing political power ? I say, then, as one of the Members for Birmingham, I wholly protest against this proposal. What will you do with my Codeague if I should be humiliated to sit for a borough in which I cannot say that I have been elected by the majority of the voices of the consti tuency ? What will you say to the Member for the minority of Birming ham? Suppose we had had within the last few months three Members for Birmingham, and suppose, which is an impossible supposition, that my lamented Friend and late Colleague had been the Member for the minority. At his death there must have been a new writ issued for a Member for Birmingham. Would you, by any clause in this Bill, or in any future Bill, prevent the majority of that constituency from voting for his suc cessor ? What could you do in such a case ? Or suppose that my hon. Col league the Member for the minority in a future Parliament, if I should be unfortunate enough to be .associated with such an one, proved to be service able to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Derby invited him to take a seat in his Government. Under this very Bill you have enacted that those who take certain offices shall be re-elected. But if he went down as Member for the minority of Birmingham, who is to elect him ? Do you think the two-thirds who sup port myself and Colleague would be so condescending as to return your mi nority Member to sit as a part of a Government to which they are opposed ? The whole matter is so monstrous and so unconstitutional, that I feel that I am humiliating you and myself in dis cussing it. No, I am not humiliating you, because you do not believe in it — you believe in the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in one of the most im pressive speeches ever made in this House — and no man speaks more im pressively than he does when he speaks from his heart — opposed this scheme. You believed him, and voted with him. He thinks now as he thought then. He has followed my speech from beginning to end, and there is not a single word which he is prepared at this moment to contradict. This is not a question of mere convenience to the Government or of acquiescence with the House of Lords. The House of Lords has done what it thought was right, and if you should disagree, the House of Lords will con sult, not only the interests of the country and the dignity of the House of Com mons, but its own dignity, in acqui escing in the view you take. You are a responsible and represen tative body. You have powers — though they cannot be written exactly ; and though you cannot take a clause from the Constitution which shall strictly de fine them, you have powers that are far above the powers of the Monarchy or of the aristocracy in the House of Peers. Of those powers you cannot divest yourself. They spring from the very source of your existence, for you come from the people throughout the length and breadth of the country. You can not and you dare not — I say you dare not — betray their rights and desert their .interests. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman will say I am speaking strongly and passionately, because I am one of the Members whose constituents are interested specially in this matter. I do not deny it. I should be ashamed 4i4 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. of myself if I did not admit that it made some difference in the earnestness and warmth of my feelings with regard to it. But if I went out of the House to night — and I would rather go out of it to-night than vote for this proposal or sit for a constituency as the representa tive of the minority — if I were to leave the House to-night and never to return to it, I should entertain the same feel ing, and should express it with the same warmth and earnestness with which I submit my views at this moment to the House. May I ask the House to lift them selves just for a moment from any nar row view of party ? It is not a question of party; let us put that aside alto gether. Let us not suppose for a mo ment that we are going to injure or aid the Government — there is nothing of that kind in it. It will be greatly to the credit of Lord Derby and of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the historic character of their measure that it should not be defaced by a great evil like this. I am speaking in their inte rest as much as any can do who have supported this Bill. Let us, therefore, get rid of the feeling of party — of the feeling that we are going to vote for or against the Government. Let us get rid of all feeling except that this change has been recommended to us by the House of Lords, in which there cannot be either the same knowledge or the same interest in the matter which exists in this House. Let us look at this sim ply as it refers to the great body in whose names we sit and speak here. Let us look at it in reference to that grand old freedom which our forefathers struggled for and secured, and main tained, and the advantages of which, from the day of our birth till this hour, we have been constantly enjoying. If this proposal had come before this House at the time when the great men, the giants of the English Constitution, sat in this House, they would have treated it in a manner far less decorous than we shall treat it. There is no name that appears among the great men of that day, parents of English freedom, which would not have been found among the names of those who shall this day say ' No I' to the mischievous proposition sent down to us by the House of Lords. -:~<>HS>43o~:- FREE TRADE. COVENT GARDEN THEATRE, DECEMBER 19, 1845. [During the agitation for the repeal of the Corn-laws, the Anti-Com-law League held many great meetings in Covent Garden Theatre, at which Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, Mr. C. P. Villiers, and other prominent advocates of Free Trade, spoke on the great question of the day. The following speech was delivered at one of these celebrated Covent Garden meetings, held immediately after the temporary resignation of Sir Robert Peel.] During the last month, I have visited, as one of a deputation from the Council of the League, many towns in this coun try. I have been present at meetings in Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Not tinghamshire, Derbyshire, Gloucester shire, Staffordshire, Somersetshire, and now in Middlesex ; and I am forced to the conclusion that the agitation now in progress throughout this kingdom is one of no common or trivial charac ter. Notwithstanding the hope that my Friend who has just addressed you has expressed, that it may not become a strife of classes, I am not sure that it has not already become such, and I doubt whether it can have any other character. I believe this to be a move ment of the commercial and industrious classes against the lords and great pro prietors of the soil. Within the last fifty years trade has done much for the people of England. Our population has greatly increased ; our villages have become towns, and our small towns large cities. The con temned class of manufacturers and traders has assumed another and a very different position, and the great pro prietors of the soil now find that there are other men and interests to be con sulted in this kingdom besides those of whom they have taken such great care through the legislation which they have controlled. In the varying fortunes of this contest we have already seen one feeble and attenuated Administiatibn overthrown, and now we see another, which every man thought powerful and robust, prostrate in the dust. It is worth while that the people, and that statesmen, should regard this result, and learn from it a lesson. What was it that brought the Whig Government down in 1841, and what is it that has brought down Sir Robert Peel now? Have not we good grounds for asserting that the Corn-law makes it impossible for any party longer to govern England during its continuance ? No statesman dare now take office upon the under standing that he is to maintain the system which the Protectionists have asserted to be a fundamental principle in the Constitution of the kingdom. We have heard that die Whig 416 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 19, Government left the country in great dis tress, and its financial affairs in much embarrassment. But no one has ever pointed out the particular acts of that Government which made the revenue deficient. It was not the taking off of taxes injudiciously — it was not a more than ordinarily extravagant expenditure of the public funds which produced that effect; but it was the collapse of the national industry — it was the failure of the sources whence flow the prosperity of our trade, a calamity which arose from deficient harvests, those deficient harvests being destructive to our trade and industry, because the Corn-law de nied to us the power of repairing the mischief by means of foreign supplies. Great landed proprietors may fancy that trade is of small importance; but of this we are at present assured, that no Government can maintain its popularity or keep up its power so long as we have deficient harvests and restrictions on the importation of foreign food. Under such a state of things, how is social order to be preserved ? When prices are high the revenue invariably declines, and higher taxes must be im posed; general discontent prevails, be cause there is general suffering ; and the Government, whatever be its party name, or however numerous may be its sup porters in either House of Parliament, must, under these circumstances, first become unpopular, and then, finally, become extinct. We are now brought to this conclusion, that the continuous government of this country by any ad ministration is totally incompatible with the maintenance of the Corn-laws. Lord John Russell acknowledges it, and Sir Robert Peel, by his sudden retirement from office, has given his testimony to the fact. But there are men who deny it ; such men, for example, as Sir John Tyrrell and Mr. Bramston, the latter celebrated, I believe, as the leader in the great land debate. These men, down in Essex, speak of Sir Robert Peel in the most opprobrious language. They say they are glad that the ' organised- hypocrisy ' is at an end — that they are delighted that ' the reign of humbug is over;' that they are astounded at the perfidy and treachery of the men whom they lifted into office. It is neither per fidy nor treachery of which they have to complain. Sir Robert Peel cannot, any more than other men, do impossibili ties ; and it is an impossibdity to govern this country with the Com-law in exist ence. Sir John Tyrrell, and the like of him, do not shrink from the heavy re sponsibility of attempting this impos sible task ; but Sir Robert Peel does shrink from it. Sir Robert Peel is in a very different position front that which they occupy. The country has a hold upon him ; he is responsible, and as Prime Minister he knows that he must be held responsible. But, further, he is responsible also to posterity, and no man more than Sir Robert Peel wishes to stand well upon the page of his coun try's history. But as for the squires, the country has no hold upon them ; it expects nothing from them, and will make them responsible for nothing. The Tyrrells and the Bramstons are lost amid the herd of squires, and nobody can lay hold of them to make them atone for national calamities. And if the country has no hold upon them, cer tainly posterity has none. No man who records the histoiy of this period will ever write long paragraphs about the Tyrrells and the Bramstons. All that posterity will know of these, and of such as these, will be communicated to them upon a marble tablet in some obscure parish church. This contest has now been waged for seven years ; it was a serious one when commenced, but it is a far more serious one now. Since the time when we first came to London to ask the attention of Parliament to the question- of the Corn-law, two millions of human beings have been added to the population of the United Kingdom. The table is here as before ; the food is spread in about the same quantity as before; but two millions of fresh guests have arrived, and that circumstance makes the ques tion a serious one, both for the Govern- 1845. FREE TRADE. 4'7 ment and for us. These two millions are so many arguments for the Anti- Com-law League — so many emphatic condemnations of the policy of this iniquitous law. I see them now in my mind's eye ranged before me, old men and young children, all looking to die Government for bread; some endea vouring to resist the stroke of famine, clamorous and turbulent, but still argu ing with us ; some dying mute and un complaining. Multitudes have died of hunger in the United Kingdom since we first asked the Government to repeal the Com-law, and although the great and powerful may not regard those who suffer mutely and die in silence, yet the recording angel will note down their patient endurance and the heavy guilt of those by whom they have been sacri ficed. We have had a succession of skir mishes; we now approach the final conflict. It may be worth while to inquire who and what are the com batants in this great battle? Looking in the columns of the newspapers, and attending, as I have attended, hundreds of meetings held to support the prin ciples of Free Trade, we must conclude, that on the face of it the straggle is that of the many against the few. It is a struggle between the numbers, wealth, comforts, the all in fact, of the middle and industrious classes, and the wealth, the union, and sordidness of a large section of the aristocracy of this empire; and we have to decide, — for it may be that this meeting itself may to no little extent be the arbiter in this great con test, — we have to decide now in this great struggle, whether in this land in which we live, we will longer bear the wicked legislation to which we have been subjected, or whether we will make one effort to right the vessel, to keep her in her true course, and, if pos sible, to bring her safely to a secure haven. Our object, as the people, can only be, that we should have good and impartial government for everybody. As the whole people, we can by no possibility have the smallest interest in any partial or unjust legislation : we do not wish to sacrifice any right of the richest or most powerful class, but we are resolved that that class shall not sacrifice the rights of a whole people. We have had landlord rule longer, far longer than the life of the oldest man in this vast assembly, and I would ask you to look at the results of that rule, and then decide whether it be not necessary to interpose some check to the extravagance of such legislation. The landowners have had unlimited sway in Parliament and in the pro vinces. Abroad, the histoiy of our country is the history of war and rapine: at home, of debt, taxes, and rapine too. In all the great contests in which we have been engaged we have found that this ruling class have taken all the honours, while the people have taken all the scars. No sooner was the country freed from the horrible contest which was so long carried on with the powers of Europe, than this law, by their partial legislation, was enacted — far more hos tile to British interests than any com bination of foreign powers has ever proved. We find them legislating cor ruptly: they pray daily that in their legislation they may discard all private ends and partial affections, and after prayers they sit down to make a law for the purpose of extorting from all the consumers of food a higher price than it is worth, that the extra price may find its way into the pockets of the proprietors of land, these proprietors being the very men by whom this in famous law is sustained. In their other legislation we find great inequality. For example, they deal very leniently with high gaming on the turf, and very severely with chuck- farthing and pitch and toss. We find them enacting a merciless code for the E reservation of wild animals and vermin ept for their own sport ; and, as if to make this law still more odious, we find them entrusting its administration, for the most part, to sporting gentle men and game preservers." "We find throughout England and Wales, that 27 4t8 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 19, the proportion of one in eleven of our whole population consists of paupers; and that in the south and south-western counties of England, where squiredom has never been much interfered with, the pauperism is as one to seven of the whole population. We find, moreover, that in Scotland there is an amount of suffering no less, perhaps, though not so accurately set down in figures. We find the cottages of the peasantry pulled down in thousands of cases, that the population on the landed estates may be thinned, and the unfortunate wretches driven into the towns to procure a preca rious support, or beyond the ocean, to find a refuge in a foreign land. But in that country across the Channel, whence we now hear the wail of lamentation, where trade is almost unknown, where landowners are predominant and omni potent, we find not one in seven, but at least half the population reduced to a state which may be termed a condition of pauperism. The men who write for Protectionist newspapers sometimes heap their scorn upon the inhabitants of the American republic. New York is that State of the Union in which there is the most pauperism, for to that State the stream of emigration from this country and from Ireland flows; and yet in that State, the most pauperised in the whole republic, there is only one pauper to eveiy 184 of the population. It is trae that they have not an hereditary peerage to trust to. They know nothing there of a House of Lords, seventy or eighty Members of which deposit their legisla tive power in the hands of one old man. It is not a wise thing for the hereditary peerage and the Protectionist party to direct the attention of the people of this country to the condition of the American republic. We do not expect perfection either in the New World or in the Old ; all we ask is, that when an abuse is pointed out, it may be fairly and openly inquired into, and, if it be proved to be an abuse, honestly abated. I am always fearful of entering upon the question of the condition of that portion of our working population amongst whom these squires and lords principaUy live; but I find that those newspapers which stand in a very ambi guous character before the public, which sometimes are, and sometimes are not, the organs of the Government, but are always organs which play a tune that jars upon the nerves of the people — I find those papers are now endeavouring to play the old game of raising hostile feelings in the manufacturing districts between the employers and the em ployed. Let them write; bread has risen too much within the last six months, and within the last two months trade has suffered too sad a reverse, for their writing to have any effect now. There is the most cordial, complete, and, I believe I may add, lasting union amongst all classes in the manufactur ing districts in reference to this cause. But how stands the case in the rural districts ? Can the Protectionists call a meeting in any town or village in the kingdom, giving a week's notice of then- intention to call their tenants together, and imagine that they will have a vote in favour of Protection ? They sometimes think we are hard upon the aristocracy. They think that the vast population of Lancashire and Yorkshire are democratic and tur bulent. But there are no elements there, except that of great numbers, which are to be compared in their dangerous character with the elements of disaffection and insubordination which exist round about the halls and castles of this proud and arrogant aristocracy. You have seen in the papers, within the last fortnight, that the foul and frightful crime of incendiarism has again ap peared. It always shows itself when we have had for some short time a high price of bread. The Corn-law is as great a robbery of the man who follows the plough as it is of him who minds the loom, with this difference, that the man who follows the plough is, of the two, nearest the earth, and it takes less power to press him into it. Mr. Benett, one of the Members for Wiltshire, at 1845. FREE TRADE. 419 an agricultural meeting held not long since, made a very long speech, in which he said some remarkable things — the most remarkable being, that if he had again to come into the world, and had the option of choosing the particular rank or class in society to which he would belong, after reviewing, I believe, a period of about seventy years, he con fessed that he would choose to be an agricultural labourer. Now, this senti ment is certainly of a very novel cha racter ; and it is one worth examining, coming, as it did, from a man who had at one time, I am told, a property of eight or ten thousand a-year in land. Now, what is the condition of this agricultural labourer, for whom they tell us Protection is necessary? He lives in a parish whose owner, it may be, has deeply mortgaged it. The estate is let to farmers without capital, whose land grows almost as much rushes as wheat. The bad cultivation of the land provides scarcely any employment for the labourers, who become more and more numerous in the parish ; the competition which there is amongst these labourers for the little employ ment to be had, bringing down the wages to the very lowest point at which their lives can be kept in them. They are heart-broken, spirit-broken, despair ing men. They have been accustomed to this from their youth, and they see nothing in the future which affords a single ray of hope. We have attended meetings in those districts, and have been received with the utmost enthu siasm by these round-frocked labourers. They would have carried us from the carriage which we had travelled in, to the hustings ; and if a silly squire or a foolish farmer attempted any disturb ance or improper interference, these round-frocked men were all around us in an instant, ready to defend us ; and I have seen them hustle many a powerful man from the field in which the meet ing was being held. If there be one view of this question which stimulates me to harder work in this cause than another, it is the fearful sufferings which I know to exist amongst the rural labourers in almost every part of this kingdom. How can they be men under the circumstances in which they live? During the period of their growing up to manhood, they are employed at odd jobs about the farm or the farm-yard, for wages which are merely those of little children in Lancashire. Every man who marries is considered an enemy to the parish; every child who is born into the world, instead of being a subject of rejoicing to its parents and to the community, is considered as an intruder come to com pete for the little work and the small quantity of food which is left to the population. And then comes toil, year after year, long years of labour, with little remuneration; but perhaps at sixty or seventy, a gift of 20s. and a coat, or of 2/., from the Agricultural Society, because they have brought up a large family, and have not committed that worst of all sins, taken money from the parochial rates. One of their own poets has well expressed their condi tion : — ' A blessed prospect — To slave while there is strength — in age the workhouse, A parish shell at last, and the little bell Toll'd hastily for a pauper's funeral 1 ' But the crowning offence of the system of legislation under which we have been living is, that a law has been enacted, in which it is altogether un avoidable that these industrious and deserving men should be brought down to so helpless and despairing a condi tion. By withdrawing the stimulus of competition, the law prevents the good cultivation of the land of our countiy, and therefore diminishes the supply of food which we might derive from it. It prevents, at the same time, the im portation of foreign food from abroad, and it also prevents the growth of sup plies abroad, so that when we are forced to go there for them they are not to be found. The law is, in fact, a law of the most ingeniously malignant cha- 27 — 2 420 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. DEC 19, racter. It is fenced about in every pos sible way. The most demoniacal in genuity could not have invented a scheme more calculated to bring millions of the working classes of this country to a state of pauperism, suffering, discontent, and insubordination than the Corn-law which we are now opposing. And then a fat and sleek dean, a dig nitary of the Church and a great philo sopher, recommends for the consumption of the people — he did not read a paper about the supplies that were to be had in the great valley of the Mississippi, but he said that there were Swede turnips and mangel-wurzel ;— and the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, as if to out-herod Herod himself, re commends hot water and a pinch of curry-powder. I was rejoiced, not for the sake of the Duke of Norfolk, for I pitied him, but still I was in my heart rejoiced when I saw the speech which he had made in Sussex. The people of England have not, even under thirty years of Corn-law influence, been sunk so low as to submit tamely to this in sult and wrong. It is enough that a law should have been passed to make your toil valueless, to make your skill and labour unavailing to procure for you a fair supply of the common neces saries of life — but when to this grievous iniquity they add the insult of telling you to go, like beasts that perish, to mangel-wurzel, or to something which even the beasts themselves cannot eat, then I believe the people of Eng land will rise, and with one voice pro claim the downfall of this odious system. This law is the parent of many of those grievous fluctuations in trade under which so much suffering is created in this commercial kingdom. There is a period coming — it may be as bad or worse than the last — when many a man, now feeling himself independent and comfortable in his circumstances, will find himself swept away by the torrent, and his goodly ship made a complete wreck. Capital avails almost nothing ; fluctuations in trade we have, such as no prudence can guard against. We are in despair one year, and in a state of great excitement in the next. At one time rain stares us in the face, at another we fancy that we are getting rich in a moment. Not only is trade sacrificed, but the moral character of the country is injured by the violent fluctuations created by this law. And now have we a scarcity coming or not? They say that to be forewarned is to be fore armed, and that a famine foretold never comes. And so this famine could not have come if the moment we saw it to be coming we had had power to relieve ourselves by supplies of food from abroad. The reason why a famine fore told never comes, is because when it is foreseen and foretold, men prepare for it, and thus it never comes. But here, though it has been both foreseen and foretold, there is a law passed by a paternal legislature, remaining on the statute-book, which says to twenty-seven millions of people, ' Scramble for what there is, and if the poorest and the weakest starve, foreign supplies shall not come in for fear some injury should be done to the mortgaged landowners.' Well, if this class of whom I have spoken have maintained this law for thirty years — if they continued it from 1838 to 1842 — be assured that no feel ing of mercy, no relenting, no sympathy for the sufferings of the people, will weigh one atom in the scale in making them give up the law now. They have no one to whom they can look for » promise to maintain it; but we have some one to whom to look for a pro mise to repeal it. But the promises of Lord John RusseU, or any other min ister, are entirely conditional. He knows that he alone cannot repeal the Corn- law. I had almost said that the over turning of the monarchy would be a trifle compared with the touching of the pockets of the squires. Lord John Russell himself has said that it can only be done by the unequivocal expression of the public will. How is this expression to be made ? By meet ings such as this, and by the meetings which myself and others have seen in 1845. FREE TRADE. 421 all parts of the kingdom ; and also by preparations of the most active character for that general election which, in all human probability, is near upon us. I believe you have heard that we had a meeting in Manchester the other day, which was attended by more of the wealth and influence of that district than I have ever seen assembled at a meeting of the same numbers before. It was resolved on Tuesday to have a general meeting of ad those who are wishful to support the League in this great and final straggle. It has been an nounced that the Council of the League are cading upon their friends through out the countiy to raise a fund of 250,000/. for the purpose of being ready in any emergency, and for the sake of maintaining before the ranks of the Protectionists, at least, as bold and resolute a character as we have maintained for the past seven years. Now, that money will be subscribed as it is required, and that large sum will be paid, and I can promise this meeting and the countiy that it will be honestly and judiciously applied to carry out the great national object for which the League has been established. If the Protectionists like to defer the settle ment of this question till the warm weather comes, we will not trouble our friends to tear themselves half to pieces in getting within the walls of this theatre, but we wdl ask them to meet here, in Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Sheffield, Birmingham, and other towns, in num bers so great, in unanimity so remark able, and in resolution so undaunted, that the aristocracy of this country, with all their pride of ancestry and their boasted valour, will quail before the demonstration that will then be made. Two centuries ago the people of this country were engaged in a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic and treacherous monarch assumed to himself the right to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament and the peo ple. That assumption was resisted. This fair island became a battle-field, the kingdom was convulsed, and an ancient throne overturned. And, if our fore fathers two hundred years ago resisted that attempt — if they refused to be the bondmen of a king, shad we be the bom thralls of an aristocracy like ours ? Shall we, who struck the lion down, shall we pay the wolf homage ? or shall we not, by a manly and united expres sion of public opinion, at once, and for ever, put an end to this giant wrong ? Our cause is at least as good as theirs. We stand on higher vantage-ground; we have large numbers at our back ; we have more of wealth, intelligence, union, and knowledge of the political rights and the true interests of the country; and, what is more than all this — we have a weapon, a power, and machinery, which is a thousand times better than that of force, were it employed — I refer to the registration, and especially to the 40s. freehold, for that is the great constitu tional weapon which we intend to wield, and by means of which we are sure to conquer, our laurels being gained, not in bloody fields, but upon the hustings and in the registration courts. Now, I do hope, that if this law be repealed within the next six months, and if it should then be necessary that this League should disperse, I do trust that the people of England will bear in mind how great a panic has been created among the monopolist rulers by this small weapon, which we have discovered hid in the Reform Act, and in the Con stitution of the country. I would im plore the middle and working classes to regard it as the portal of their deliver ance, as the strong and irresistible weapon before which the domination of this hereditary peerage must at length be laid in the dust. BURDENS ON LAND. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 15, 1849. From Hansard. [On March 8, 1849, Mr. Disraeli submitted a resolution to the effect that the whole of the lo.cal taxation of the country falls mainly, and presses with undue severity, on real property. He suggested that one-half of these local rates should be paid out of the Consolidated Fund. The debate was adjourned to March 15, when the resolution was negatived by 280 votes to 189.] It seems to me that a great deal of misapprehension exists among hon. Gen tlemen on the benches opposite with regard to the proposition of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. We were originally given to understand, if I mis take not, that the basis or groundwork of that proposition was the prevalence of great distress among all classes of the community connected with agriculture in this country. But the speech of the hon. Mover of the proposition described a case of a very different description, whilst the speech of the hon. Member for Somersetshire, who has just sat down, has apprised you that none of the distress resulting from the burdens on land complained of falls on that class whom the hon. Mover would induce you to relieve by adopting his propo sition. The hon. Member for Buckingham shire, in his speech on introducing this question, quoted something which I am said to have stated on a former occa sion, admitting the great distress pre vailing among the agricultural classes. He misquoted what I then said; very unintentionally I am quite sure, but very strangely. I never expressed my self to the effect — and, if I had done so, I should have betrayed great ignorance of that which must be within the cog nisance or experience of almost eveiy man — that, generally speaking, the dis tress of the times has been very severely felt by the agricultural community. I said that little had been said about the pressure of agricultural distress farther northwards than Cambridge or Suffolk, and that in the south of England the cry of agricultural distress had scarcely been heard of. And I say further, that hardly anything has been ever asserted of late in the north as to the depression of agricultural prices. Well, Sir, I can only assure the House that I met but a few days ago with some gentlemen who had lately come up from the southern counties of Scot land, and who told me that they had been selling their wheat in the markets there at from 47s. to 48s. per quarter on an average. They had a fair crop last year of good quality, and they are satis fied with the prices they have received. They must be subject to the same vicis situdes, for example, as men are in every other trade. Farmers, no more than any other traders, can expect to be always lucky. Just prior to the harvest of last year, the rain fed exactiy at the Critical moment for the farmers of the south, and just before the critical mo- MARCH 15, 1849. BURDENS ON LAND. 423 ment for the fanners of the north. What has been the consequence ? The farmers of the northern counties have harvested their produce in good condition, and obtain good prices ; those of the south have been less fortunate, and realise less encouraging returns. This is simply the reason why we have great complaints from the one, and few or none from the other class of tenant-farmers. If any of these parties, however, seek a -ground upon which to found his appeal to Parliament for legislative relief, he must look for it in the speech of the hon. Member for Somersetshire, whose for tune it has been to make such an appeal in vain. I shall not enter into those questions connected with the general condition of the trade and finances, and of the agri cultural classes of this country, which have been already, in my opinion, dis posed of by the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Chancellor of the Ex chequer. But the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down made one statement upon which I must be allowed to offer a word or two. That hon. Member told us that he had lately been selling some wheat. He told us that his wheat was only of inferior quality, yet that he realised, I think, 42s. per quarter for it. Now, I think if he could get such prices for an inferior wheat, wheat of ordinary average goodness must be fetching very fair prices just now. There are other Gentlemen, Sir, in this House who are themselves manufacturers of other ar ticles. I should like to ask the hon. Member for Somersetshire what he thinks is the scale of prices they obtain when they carry into the market that which they admit to be a damaged or an inferior article. They will obtain, of course, only the lowest scale of prices for such goods. They will not get after the rate of 42s., which the hon. Member who complains of unremune- rating prices can obtain for his inferior article — a wheat of inferior quality. But as for better wheats, I met with a gen tleman a few days since who told me that Dantzic wheat was worth now, in London, from 53s. to 54s. per quarter. He added, that ¦ other foreign wheats of fair quality were obtaining, on an aver age, about 48s. per quarter. I tell the hon. Gentlemen opposite to me, that their home-grown wheat, of the same quality, will now fetch the same prices. I say, then, that the pretences on which this motion has been brought forward have totally failed — that no ground has been laid for any change in the existing burdens upon the land, which can be justified, either by the present condition of die tenant-farmer, or by the prices of agricultural produce in our markets. I do not intend to enter into any elaborate array of figures in foUowing the statements which have been made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, in the speech with which he introduced his motion ; because, all that could be said in reference to them was said, last night, by the right hon. Gentleman the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, certainly in the best speech which I have ever heard from these benches since the accession of the right hon. Gentleman and of his Colleagues to power. But the right hon. Gentleman did not, as it appeared to me, notice some points in the case or plea on which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire rested his case for our adoption of such a proposal as he has brought forward, or at least did not regard them in all the lights under which they might have been viewed. The hon. Gentleman seems to adopt for his principle the notion that all classes of the community ought to bear, collectively, certain burdens which he assumes to be, at present, borne ex clusively by the landed proprietary and real property of this country. Is this so ? If such be really the proposition of the hon. Member for Buckingham shire — and that it is, I must presume from the statement of the hon. Member for Somersetshire — how does the speech we have just heard support it? The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire ad mits that he is opposed to, and would not vote for, a national late of this 424 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 15, kind. And I think he is very wise in coming to this conclusion. The argu ments against a national rate are, in my mind, of insuperable force. I am firmly persuaded that the various expenses con nected with it would run up these rates, of which the burden is already said to be oppressive, at least five-fold within five years. But I think the original objects and working of these lo.cal rates have been a good deal misunderstood. A Report of the Poor Law Commissioners on Local Taxation was printed in 1843. I will read one remarkable passage from this Report; a passage which clearly defines the period at and the circumstances under which the practice of rating stock in trade for the relief of the poor was first resorted to in this country : — ' The practice of rating stock in trade never prevailed in the greater part of Eng land and Wales. It was, with compara tively few exceptions, confined to the old clothing district of the south and west of England. It gained ground just as the stock of the woolstaplers and clothiers increased, so as to make it an object with the farmers and other ratepayers, who. still constituted a majority in their parishes, to bring so considerable a property within the rate. They succeeded by degrees, and there followed upon their success, a more improvident practice in giving relief than had ever prevailed before in England. It was in this district, and at this time, that relief by head-money had its origin, and produced its most conspicuous effects in deteriorating the habits and depreciating the wages of the agricultural labourer. When the practice of rating stock in trade was fully established in this district, the staple trade rapidly declined there, and withdrew itself still more rapidly into the northern clothing districts, where no such burden was ever cast upon the trade.' Now, the hon. Gentleman appears to contend that these burdens should 'he imposed on all classes of the com munity, instead of one particular class, and that by such a redistribution a great good would be effected, so far as the landlord and tenant-farmer are con cerned. But, unless he could devise some means for getting at the same principle of rating all property equally, he would accomplish nothing towards effecting his own purpose. I happen to be con nected with the local administration of a township in which the proportion of local rating actually expended on the relief of the poor does not exceed, per haps, *jd. in the pound. There are townships and districts in its immediate neighbourhood in which the rate for the same purpose is not less than 7s. or 8s. in the pound. Now, it is quite clear that any manufacturer or capitalist who is largely engaged in trade, and has built a mill or a factory in such a dis trict, would be anxious, under a general rate, to come within such a township, and thus so much enhance the charge for the relief of the poor, under any pressure of trade that should throw labour largely out of employment, as to drive away particular trades, as well as capitalists, from the locality. All rates would, under such- a state of things, be enormously increased, and you would thus, by supporting the proposition before the House, be ac cessory to the ruin of both the landed and the commercial interests of the kingdom. It has been said that the proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire is enveloped in a great deal of mystery and confusion. I have endeavoured to penetrate the veil by which it is sunounded; and I will endeavour to explain the conclusions at which I have arrived upon it. It appears, then, to me that it is a pro position intended to withdraw burdens to the amount of some 6,000,000/. per annum from certain shoulders on which they are now saddled, and to impose them upon others — to relieve, in short, those who now carry them, by trans ferring them to those who hitherto have not borne them. The hon. Gentleman's scheme of redistribution would pro bably reimpose 3,000,000/. on those 1849. BURDENS ON LAND. 4^5 from whom he would take the present aggregate of 6,000,000/., and apportion the other 3,000,000/. to other classes of the community. Well; but the 3,000,000/. that he would so withdraw from those who atpresentpay 6,000,000/., would by no means represent the real proportion in which hon. Gentlemen opposite desire to relieve the land from its present liabilities, or of the enhanced value which their scheme would prac tically confer upon the land generally. Assuming the whole aggregate of land in this kingdom capable of cultivation to represent an increase equal to what it has been stated at by Gentlemen opposite, a rise in the value of the fee- simple of an acre, consequent on the remission of three millions of taxation on that aggregate, would be equivalent to 2 per cent., or 60,000,000/. sterling. An increased value of 2l. per cent. would represent 120,000,000/. as the increased value of the land, supposing it to be brought for sale into the mar ket, or that the Legislature sanctioned such a proposition as that which is now before it. I, for one, do not think that these are times in which the Legislature could he brought to listen to any such proposition. It is not likely, I trust, ta meet with much favour from this House. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire and his friends seem altogether to forget the ultimate effect if Parliament entertains so exclusive a proposition as he has brought before it with a view of benefiting the landlord. If I am not mistaken, the whole cul tivable lands of all England and Wales amount to more than twenty-five — per haps, indeed, to thirty — millions of acres. Every acre you would thus re lieve, I must repeat, would rise in value in the proportion of from 5/. to 10/. [' No.'] Well, I wid be content to say 5/. only. This increase would represent an extension of capital invested in the lands held by tenant-farmers and others of not less than 150,000,000/. sterling. Would not this be to perpetrate a great injustice to all other descriptions of property for the sake of an exclusive benefit to the land ? I ask hon. Gentle men opposite whether or not they them selves consider that this would be right or proper ? I do think, however, that the propo sition now before the House is not less extraordinary than it is unjust. It has for its ostensible object to relieve the present pressure of that which I believe to be the temporary distress of the landed interest. But then the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire is so very discriminating in his views of that question, that the case of the agricul turists of Scotland did not elicit even a single word in his speech. And as for the agriculturists, or any other classes of the unhappy community of the sister island, he turned the cold shoulder to the Irish, and all his sympathy for them extended to that which is pro verbially said to be the alms of those who have no money in their pockets wherewith to afford more substantial relief. He gave them — advice. Sir, the hon. Gentleman said that many schemes had been brought forward for the amelioration of the condition of Ireland, but that nothing effectual had been done for her for some sessions past. And here his admission left her. I do not think that Ireland will derive any great benefit from the advocacy of the hon. Gentleman. She will have little to thank him for, if he is prepared to. tender her no other consolation for her sufferings but — his advice. It has been contended that the pro position of the hon. Member would, if carried into effect, remove a great cause of dissatisfaction among the tenant- farmers. But I am convinced that it would create very great discontent a- mong the people. [Laughter.] I repeat this, is my conviction — notwithstanding the laughter which it has occasioned. The hon. Member who spoke last has quoted largely from a paper well known to most of those who hear me — a print of great authority in all agricultural society, and of great respectability — I mean the Mark Lane Express. The 426 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 15, article from which the hon. Gentleman read, indulges in stronger language, perhaps, than I should desire to em ploy : it stigmatises certain official documents, the authenticity of which it challenges, as the most deceiving statements ever concocted by the dupli city of man. It also expresses great dissatisfaction at the proposition of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. I really think that the proposition of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire is founded on fallacies which are in tended to beguile the House into its adoption, but which are amenable to a censure scarcely less severe. That pro position, indeed, reminds me of a story which many hon. Gentlemen have per haps heard before, yet which I will venture to tell the House in very few words. It happened once, in a country town, and an agricultural district, that a company of strolling players proposed to get up a performance 'for the benefit of the poor ' of the neighbourhood. It was calculated by those who announced this intention that the object of con tributing towards the relief of the poor would certainly induce the gentry to come forward generously in supporting the performance ; and trie event proved the soundness of this anticipation. But when it came to a question as to how the proceeds were to be appropriated, the strolling company claimed them all for themselves, on the principle that they themselves were ' the poor ' in tended. This is just "the case with the pro posal of the hon. Member, if you look at its real tendencies. He would pro cure this boon for the tenant-farmers — of relief from local rates ; but he does not go — nor any of his hon. friends near him — for the repeal of the Malt-tax. ' We,' he says, ' do not ask for that at present. It is not the time to ask this relief for you ; for we don't go for a revision of the whole scheme of exist ing taxation.' As to the Malt-tax, I am not altogether prepared to embrace all the views entertained by some of my hon. friends on that subject. I am not one of those who think that the people at large will be much the happier for being relieved from the Malt-tax. As little do I think you will make the people generally more satisfied by taxing malt ; or that you will ever succeed in getting rid of drunkenness, or any other vice, simply by rendering its indulgence dear. But I do think that if by repeal ing the duty on malt, you leave more money in the poor man's pocket for the purchase of other articles of more profit, or value, or convenience to him than that into the cost of which this tax enters, you do well ; and notwithstand ing what an hon. Baronet has said in the course of this debate, I believe what has fallen from the hon. Member for Lincolnshire, that the Malt-tax is one injurious to agriculture, and oppressive upon the working labourer and con sumer. I own that I am astonished at the conduct of hon. Gentlemen oppo site on this question, after hearing diem both in this House and at public meet ings out of doors advocate the repeal of the Malt-tax. The same parties who on this side of the House were its most strenuous advocates, have ceased to mention it now that they have crossed to the benches opposite. ' Their lips are now forbid to speak That once familiar word.' Not one voice now calls for that fa vourite act of justice, but we are told to wait till the proper time shall arrive. The hon. Member for Buckingham shire holds this language, but he has not indicated when the time will come. I wish the hon. Gentleman would look a little into the real state of the coun try ; if he would consult the feelings of the people, he would find that nothing more displeases them than to have their representatives hold one lan guage here, and another before their constituents. Sir, hon. Gentlemen know, that at meetings in the country, even tithes are permitted in their presence to be spoken of in the most violent and in temperate language. They encourage, by their own conduct, the people to expect 1849. BURDENS ON LAND. 427 remissions of burdens which must diminish the public revenues, and leave it to Parliament to provide the substi tute as best it may. I am astonished at the conduct of hon. Gentlemen. If I were myself an owner of land, I should say this to my tenant-farmers : ' Men, you have got the land, and it must be your object to work it to the best of your .ability with the capital you have. Parliament, like the landlord, must deal with those on whose behalf this propo sition is said to be made, on the same principles on which it would deal with trades of all other descriptions. You must exert the same virtues of per severance, industry, and frugality which others possess, and in which you are not wanting ; you must look to the ex ercise of these means for your profit and success, not to external aid or exclusive assistance, which can only be rendered at the cost of gross injustice to others.' But the speech of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire was so purely agricultural, that he did not enter into any such considerations. He recog nised no such principle of dealing with the interests of all classes, instead of addressing ourselves to the benefit of one only. He himself quoted from the Standard, a newspaper of high authority with his party, and so exclusively agri cultural in its predilections, that in one of its leaders a few years ago it con tended that if the whole of the manufac tures of England were destroyed to morrow, England would not be a less great country by one iota, or the English a less happy people. But the Standard now takes up different ground. It announced in a recent number that unions were now formed in most of the southern counties of England, the object of which was carefully to exclude all the products of the mills of the north, so that the cloths of Cheshire and Yorkshire would not be allowed to come into competition with the produc tions of Wiltshire. If this is to be the spirit in which hon. Gentlemen are dis posed to make common cause against the manufacturing interest, I wonder they do not carry out their principle to its full extent, and, as their ancestors once wandered over the countiy clothed in skins and with their bodies painted, that they do not come down here in that way. They might come at last to clothe themselves in thatch, by which means I trust the farmers will obtain a remunerative price for their straw. I am not at all disposed to dispute the meritorious and industrious cha racter of the tenant-farmers ; on the contrary, I believe them well entitled to the praise of possessing those qualities in a high degree. But I protest against a proposition on their behalf which would certainly prejudice the interests of all other classes for the doubtful benefit of one. I am opposed to all these partial experiments. I would willingly sup port any proposition which went to the reduction of those taxes on raw mate rial which stand in the way of manu facturing labour and close the market on the industry of our artisans. This proposition was recommended to our sympathy on behalf of farmers who have small or no capital ; but what would be said of any similar propo sition by which it should be proposed to mulct the manufacturers of the north for the benefit of manufacturers without capital in the south? You ought to endeavour to secure to your farms men who have capital and great spirit in agriculture. But you do not do this. If a farmer comes to you, and asks for a farm, wishing to make stipulations — which may be called stipulations of a commercial character — such as that he shad plough and grow as he likes, that he shall have every creature that lives upon the land, and that he must not have it infested with game ; if such a man comes to you, you do not like him as a tenant: but it is the consequence of free trade that you must introduce such principles in your future arrange ments between landlord and tenant. It is impossible that this great country, with its large and increasing interests, and its dense population, should stand still or rest under the baneful influence 428 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 15, of protection to agriculture, simply be cause you are unwilling to adopt those principles with relation to your tenants which are adopted in every other branch of industry throughout this country. Now our proposition is admitted on all hands, I believe, to be more distinct and intelligible than that of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. He has come forward as a Chancellor of the Exchequer — as the framer of a budget — ¦ but it is clear that he is only a novice in his new work, because he has not shown where he is going to obtain the money which he is wishing to remit in the shape of taxation. I suppose, judging from what slight hints fell from the hon. Gentleman, that he means to increase the income-tax ; or the hon. Baronet the Member for Lincolnshire (Sir M. Cholmeley) says that a fixed duty upon corn will serve the purpose as well. But let hon. Gentlemen be ware how they turn their attention to the question of the reimposition of the duties upon com. If you do so, you are attempting that which, I believe, is as impossible as the repeal of any Act which has passed this House in former times. You might probably effect the repeal of the Reform Bill or the Catholic Emancipation Act in the same session as that in which you reimpose the duty upon com. Take care what you are about. Hon. Gentlemen fancy that there is a lull in the public mind ; that events abroad have frightened people at home. Bear in mind that in all the European capitals a system is being established which will have a strange effect upon the minds of people in this countiy, who are looking, and wisely looking, to great and permanent changes in the constitution of Parliament ; and that whilst your conduct is encouraging such ideas, you are leading the farmers of England in the pursuit of that false and uncertain light which must land them hereafter in the midst of difficulties much greater than those which en compass them at present. You talk of the experiment of Free Trade as though it had failed, or was but an experiment. I ask, have you not legislated, since the oldest amongst you first came here, in favour of Protection, and with the view of keeping up the price of com ; and do you not recollect that under protective laws in 1836 the whole average price of the year for good wheat — not sprouted wheat — was but 39s. 4->5 GAME LAWS. ST. ALBAN'S, MARCH 26, 1845. [A public dinner was given to Mr. Homcastle, a respectable farmer in Hertfordshire, as a testimony of the approbation felt by his brother farmers at his courage in exposing the grievance of the Game-laws. Mr. Bright was invited to the dinner, and delivered the following speech on the occasion.] I neeu scarcely say that when I re ceived the invitation to be present at this meeting I felt it as an exceedingly gratify ing proof that the trouble I have recently taken in connection with the question of game-preserving had not passed un noticed by the farmers of this district of the countiy. But, whatever pleasure I felt at receiving the invitation, I may acknowledge with the utmost sincerity, that it has been far surpassed by the gratification I have had in being present here to-night. I have been delighted to see so many of the farmers from this part of the countiy assembled for the purpose of expressing their opinion upon the conduct of one of their brother farmers in connection with one of the most important questions which can bear upon the prosperity of the agri cultural portion of the community. I was delighted to see, from the public papers, the spirited manner in which Mr. Homcastle came forward for the purpose of speaking what was known to be the opinions of nineteen out of every twenty farmers in the kingdom ; and not to the public only, but in direct opposition, and with personal appli cation, to the very man upon whom a farmer is generally supposed to be most dependent. But it must now be a matter of satisfaction of the very highest kind that the effort which he then made — and which hundreds of fanners ought to have- made, and which, I believe, hundreds will soon be prepared to fol low — that the efforts which he has made have been so highly appreciated by his brother farmers. I think a fanner ought not so much to cultivate the good opinion of landowners as that of farmers ; and though I have no wish that there should be that class spirit amongst us which would lead to the supposition that we hold together for peculiar privileges or party interests of our own class, yet I do think that a man is craven-hearted and mean-spirited who, when his own class is attacked, as the farmers have been through the operation of this system of game-pre serving, would not come forward and speak on behalf of his own class and of that vast body of men with whom he is constantly associated, and whose in terests are so bound up with his own. It is well that you should testify your high estimation of such men as your brother farmer whom you have met to-night to honour. Independent far mers, men who dare speak and dare come out, are not so abundant in this country as that you can afford to think 43« SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 26, lightly of any of them. Probably under no conceivable circumstances can it be expected that there should not be some what more dependence between the oc cupiers and the owners of land than there is between some other classes in society ; but it is of the utmost conse quence that a system like this — which wars against the prosperity of the far mers, which blights all their hopes, and' makes it utterly impossible that their industry should procure its reward — it is, I say, of the utmost possible conse quence that there should be men who dare speak out, and that when such in dividuals are found they should receive honour, and be repaid with the gratitude of their brother farmers in every part of the kingdom. We have heard a good deal within the last year or two of farmers' friends ; but I take it that Mr. Homcastle is a trae fanners' friend, and, if it were not that fortunate circumstances have made him in some degree independent of those who would be 'likely to injure him, he would not only be the farmers' friend, but he would be -likely to become a martyr for farmers. I am delighted to see this meeting, because I take it to be a sign of the times, and a sign of better times — an evidence that farmers are about to think, act, and do some thing for themselves. I conceive there is no delusion so great as that of be lieving that the great and the mighty of the earth will ever be the true, sincere, and disinterested friends of the middle classes, either in this or any other kingdom. I have heard men say that there is no spirit amongst farmers. I never be lieved that statement. I have felt that there has always been spirit, but that it has been slumbering. It has not been dead, but it has been less active on ac count of many circumstances ; but cir cumstances may arise, and now I believe have arisen, to make that spirit appear not only existent, but to show it active, resolute, and determined. The real object of this meeting is to give an expression to the opinions of the farmers in this district with respect to what is now commonly called the game nuisance. It is a protest against a mischievous and unjust system. The time will come, and that too before the children of some now present are as old as we are, when people will look back with astonishment at what farmers have suffered in connection with this question of game. Look at the position in which you now stand. The landowner lets his land, and the farmer, a capitalist to some amount, takes it. Wed, every body who is not acquainted with the circumstances of this country, and who is not puzzled with the extraordinary things he sees round him, would suppose that, when the landowner lets his land, he gave up its ownership during the term for which it was let. That is, he lets the land to the tenant, the tenant having the right to possess fully all the produce of the land, and the whole of the animals and stock which live upon it. Now, look at the position of the farmer when he takes his farm. It is said he himself makes half his bargain ; he is uncommonly fortunate if he does so. Is it not notorious that in every county of Great Britain there is, and has been for years past, a competition for land so fierce that nearly ad the bargain is in the hands of the landlord ? The effect of this competition is to bid up rent to the very highest point at which it can be hoped to be paid, and to bear down every covenant and right which, under other circumstances, the farmer might reasonably expect to be granted to him for the preservation of his interests. Now, the farmer gets possession of his land ; it becomes the centre of the hopes of himself and his family; his capital is more or less invested in it — some sunk in permanent improvements, and some in the stock, implements, and materials upon the surface of the farm. He hopes that it may turn out well for him ; he gets up early, works hard and late — thousands of fanners with then- hands, and thousands more with their heads. He gives his skill, industry, and perseverance to the soil ; he is subject 1845. GAME LAWS. 439 to the vicissitudes of seasons, against which no human foresight can altogether prevail, and he stands the chance and hazard'of the markets. He has to con tend also against the effect of the igno rance -of landowning -legislators, in which ignorance, unfortunately for him, there are no vicissitudes. The result is but a very moderate compensation for his expenditure and labour, and that compensation is in many cases alto gether destroyed, and in very many more cases much lessened, by a system which'does no good to any human being whatever, which exists solely for the amusement of the rich and powerful class-at the expense of the interests of the tenantry and peasantry, and at a very great and enormous sacrifice to the whole community. There can be no success to the farmer under a system of game-preserving. In moving for a committee in the House of Commons, two or three weeks ago, I brought forward cases which were laughed at in that assembly, and which I was told were not trae. I did not bring before them my worst cases, for I was afraid that had I done so they would not have believed them ; but, now we have obtained that com mittee, I will produce cases infinitely worse than the very worst of those I then cited. I shall call before them farmers, who will prove, on oath were it necessary — which it is not before a committee-of the Houseof Commons — that they had sacrificed at least 500/. a-year for a succession of years. I can bring forward a tenant who can show that for a number of years he has expended 1 ,000/. annually in the pur chase of artificial manure, and yet so completely was his farm ravaged by game that he found it useless to toil and sacrifice his capital and to farm in this manner, and he therefore discon tinued this large purchase of artificial manure, and thus to a very great extent diminished the employment of labourers, and consequently lessened their chance of a fair remuneration in the parish in which that farm was situate. By this system of game-preserving the landlords are made the greatest enemies of a class in whose real well- being they have the truest and greatest interest; for of all men in the world the landlord is the most interested in having his tenants contented and pros perous : not only because he lives among them, occasionally meets them, and hears from and about them, but because his own pocket interest is-involved in it, if he could but see it in its trae light ; for where you find the tenants most prosperous, enlightened, and -satisfied, there you find the soil best cultivated, the amount of its produce the greatest, poor-rates the lowest, and rent in variably highest, and paid with the greatest certainty and security. But the landlords take extraordinary means to make their farmers suspect them. I maintain that there is not, and never has been since the time when man first peopled this earth, -if history may be relied on, any race of beings so unsus pecting and confiding as the tenantry of this countiy. During the last year the landlords have been asking the farmers — nay, in some cases threatening to com pel them — to employ more labourers. A landed proprietor, a Member of the House of Commons, told me only a week ago, when discussing this very question, that he forced all his tenants to employ a certain amount of labour upon each of his farms. If a man pre serves-game, refuses security of tenure, talks all sorts of nonsense to his tenants if ever he gets them round him, and dis courses about everything but their real grievances and the true way hy which a man can become prosperous, and then, when he finds that some labourers are not employed, and that there -are not sufficient means for the farmer whereby he can pay a high rent and a high rate of wage's also — if he comes and forces them by covenants in their leases, that they shall employ an amount of labour over and above that which they would otherwise be willing to employ — I say that all this introduces a system which is most destructive to the interests of 440 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 26, the landowners themselves, and most degrading and ruinous to the indepen dence and interests of the tenantry. Capital must yield profit, or labour will not thrive. Men do not take farms merely for the pleasure of paying rents or employing labourers. I am a manu facturer in a considerable way of busi ness, but I never professed to keep on my manufactory for the benefit of my work-people, or for the sake of clothing my customers. My object is, by the expenditure of capital and by giving labour to a business, to procure for myself and family a comfortable, income, with a hope of realising something like a competency at a late period of my life. I apprehend that the tenant-farmer takes his farm with a precisely similar view ; and yet I am convinced that there is no class of capitalists in this countiy who, for the last thirty years, have ob tained so small a return for the amount of capital and labour they have em ployed as have the cultivators of the soil. If the landowners are interested in the well-being of their tenantry, the tenantry are also interested in the pros perity of the labourers. I have been in some of the northern parts of this, kingdom, where I have seen a very dif ferent condition of the agricultural labourers from that which, is to be noticed in the southern counties : a state in which, the labourers seem to be interested in the success of the farmer and the prosperity of the soil. The same condition might exist all over the kingdom. Get rid of this infamous, trifling with the interests of the farmer ; do not let the amusements of a small class be put in competition not only with the prosperity, but with the very existence of a much, larger class. ' Let us, if possible — I say ' us,' for, although I am not a farmer, I am deeply in terested, as every man must be, in the prosperity of agriculture — I say, let us get a system of farming, of agreements, of management, from one end of it to the other, placed on some intelligible, rational, business-like footing, and then we shall have landowners respected because they are just, and tenants inde pendent because they are prosperous. I have said that by this system the amusements of the rich are put in the balance, and actually weigh down con siderations of much greater importance — the prosperity of farmers, the well- being of the labourers, and the true interests of the community. Who does not know that from 1838 to 1842 we had, for nearly five years, harvests which were under the average ; that the consequence was great scarcity of pro visions, with very high prices ? Some men may think that this is a very desira ble state of things. I will not argue for a moment with any individual who maintains that scarcity can be beneficial either for individuals or nations. During that period we had an importation from abroad to a considerable extent, such as the law allowed; but we had at the same time miUions of heads of game of every description — game which, in a country densely peopled like this, must soon come to be considered as vermin ; and yet there they were throughout the whole of that period devouring probably as large a quantity of the produce of the soil of England as the whole amount that we imported from abroad. The community, then, have a claim upon the landowners, if not upon the tenant-farmers. They have made them selves by law, though we are not here to discuss that law, and we should very likely greatly differ, and you might not agree with us, on that question ; but they have made themselves the pur veyors-general—that is, they supply the food, or profess to do so — for the 27,000,000 of people who inhabit Great Britain and Ireland. If they do thus think it desirable for State purposes that the population should be restricted to the food they are willing to supply them with, they are not to deem it un reasonable if some portion of the popu lation, who sometimes do not get enough, should ask them why it is that while they maintain this system of re striction they also maintain a practice i«45 GAME LAWS. 44i by which a large portion of the produce is devoured by game kept solely for their own amusement ? I believe — indeed, I know — that at the end of last session, when I gave notice of my in tention to bring forward this question of the Game-laws in Parliament, it was thought to be rather an odd and somewhat impertinent meddling with a matter not precisely within my province. I remember, when I read the notice that I should move the House upon the subject at the commencement of the present session, that there was a little titter, a little derisive laughter from the opposite side of the House. The land owners were not well acquainted with the condition of the farmers, or the state of the country in which they live. I believe they do not know much about the mischief which game does to their tenants and themselves. I think I may venture to say that I know more about the state of the tenantry of this country than the majority of those to whom the tenants pay their rents. When this case was brought forward, unless my statements could have been altogether denied, it was utterly impossible for the House to refuse the committee. There were the cases of damage well authenti cated — injury to. the tenant, destruction to the allotments of the labourers, the insolence, depredations, and irritation caused by gamekeepers, the demoraliza tion of the labourers, the thousands in gaol, the hundreds transported, and the scores murdered — the House of Com mons would have been infinitely worse than its greatest calumniator or enemy has ever dared to brand it, had it refused the investigation which I de manded, founded upon the cases which I was then able to submit to it. The committee which has been ap pointed, I believe, will be a tolerably fair one. I chose seven of its members myself, and the Government selected the remaining eight. I am bound to acknowledge that throughout the whole of this matter Ministers have behaved in the most honourable and handsome manner ; that there was not the slightest objection to any one person proposed by me as a member of that committee ; and I believe that, if the Govemment had dared to have done it, they would have put upon it from their side of the House men more favourable to the in terests of the tenantry than those who were eventually placed there. We are about to meet next week, for the first time, for evidence. I have had an amount of correspondence which it is almost impossible to get through. I have written for the last fortnight or three weeks not unfrequently from thirty to fifty letters a-day, nearly all of which have been to persons connected, more or less, with the cultivation of the soil, and having reference to the question of game. I have here a large number of names of persons who will come up and give evidence before the committee. I do not think the other party will call many witnesses ; for he would be a very bold man who would come up and say that game-preserving was advantageous, or not positively injurious, to agricul ture. They will probably content them selves by cross-examining the witnesses that we shall bring up. But what we want is specific and accurate statements of damage, and opinions formed upon experience of the past, by men who have had the best possible opportunities of judging. I do hope, when this evidence is brought out to. the public, as it will be before or about the close of this session, that we shall then have this grievous abuse fairly exposed ; and when that is once done we may be certain that there is no man out of Bedlam, no individual who does not wish to bring down upon himself the ridicule or, what is worse, the execration of the public, will ever say another word in favour of this grievance of preserving game, which has been practised for so many years past by a great portion of the landed pro prietors in most parts of the kingdom. But what I want is, that farmers every where should seriously consider their position. There are farmers who yet 442 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MARCH 26, believe that I am their enemy, inasmuch as I have been prominently connected with the agitation of another question. It may be that those farmers are right, and that I am wrong. I believe they are honest ; I am quite sure that I am. Upon that question we must agree to differ until one or the other be con verted. I trust that all discussion upon it may be carried on in a rational and kindly spirit, such as becomes men who wish only for the truth, and then I be lieve the time cannot be far distant when that which is true will be discovered, and not only discovered, but esta blished. But upon this question of game ninety- nine farmers out of every hun dred would shake hands and agree with me entirely. I had a letter from Wilt shire the other day, from a gentleman connected very closely with farmers, and whose family are all similarly situated. He says, ' Your name is a household word with the farmers in this district ; and they literally swear by you ! ' If we agree upon this point we will work harmoniously ; we will go together as far as we can, and do all the good we can in company. I wish the farmers in this county — and there are some who are well able to do it^would put them selves still more in communication with me upon this question. Let us have from every county where game-preserving has been carried to any serious extent, a body of witnesses who shall for ever settle the question, as respects the par ticular county. It is not sufficient that I should prove that game-preserving has done alarming mischief in Suffolk or in Wiltshire, for to prove that there is a local malady would not perhaps justify Parliament in applying that which may be termed a general remedy; but what I want is to bring out as much as possible the truth from every county where this nuisance has been oppressive. They should come up now before -the committee, and that will 'be infinitely better than petitioning Parliament. Let them come up now and state before the committee what they know and what they have seen, and you may rely upon it, such is the intelligence and deter mination in the public mind of England, that when an abuse is fairly exposed and -brought out to demonstration so that nobody can deny that it is an abuse, the time is near at hand when Parliament will be forced to abate it. It will be a fine thing for this country when farmers lose a little bit of that overweening confidence they have in the farmers' friends. I would not to-night say a syllable against any landed pro prietor — I believe in my conscience that many of their errors are errors of judg ment and not of heart. I believe that they have been living amongst circum stances the most unfavourable to a dis covery of what is their true interests ; and their ignorance of their own affairs has made them most officious in offering advice, which was wholly valueless to their tenants when assembled at dinners and meetings of various kinds. What I want farmers to do henceforth is this, to take nothing upon credit. I would not take anything for granted. Do not believe anything that I say, or which my friend Mr. Cobden may utter ; do not, for a moment, think it worth anything, until you have reasoned it out and examined the facts, and made yourselves sure. But apply the same rule to the landowners. I want you to apply it to all. Candidates come before you at the hustings, and they pledge themselves to all sorts of impossible things. It is notorious that half the things which men say they will do when they go to Parliament, that assembly has no more power to perform than it has to prevent the sun rising to-morrow. These men come, and they promise a variety of impossible things ; they go to Parlia ment and cannot perform them, -and then those who sent them there are disappointed, and fancy they are be trayed. If the tenantry of this countiy, power ful as they are now in numbers on the county registers, would look a little to their own rank, and not quite so much to another rank and order, they would i845. GAME LAWS. 443 find more real attention to their true interests on behalf of county representa tives than they do at present. I bought the Times newspaper at the station as I was coming down, and I find a para graph in it which may be worth reading. It is extracted from the Western Times, a Devonshire paper. It states — 'A requisition is actually determined on, to invite three eminent renting farmers to stand as candidates for the next Parliamen tary election. The fanners of Devon are determined to have men who pay rent to look after their interests in the House of Commons. We do not anticipate much immediate success from such a step, but it will teach the aristocracy a lesson, and open the eyes of the tenant-farmers to their power, if they choose to act in concert.' How would it be if a tenant-farmer were to put up for some county ? In my neighbourhood there used to be a little jealousy about manufacturers. They had a notion that nobody should go to Parliament but a man who had no other occupation to fill up his time, and who had moreover a great deal of money to bear the expense of a life in London, which was supposed to be enormous. But now they have found out their mistake, and they take a man here and another there, who is not a lord, and whose ancestors we do not know exactly what they were, but a man who has common sense and common honesty — which two things I suppose are called ' common ' for the very reason that they are so rarely to be met with. We have heard frequently — I have read repeatedly, at the proceedings of agricultural meetings of various kinds — that the toast has been proposed of 'agriculture and commerce' by men who despise commerce but yet . sell game — they have had the audacity to toast commerce and agriculture to gether. There is and ought ever to be a real union between these two great branches, by which nations subsist, but heretofore it has been only nominal, and never real : legislation has prevented its being so, for legislation has been foolish in commerce as it has been in agri culture. Speeches made at meetings such as I have referred to have also had the effect of making this union unreal. I hope that to-night is the beginning of a new era. No man here will believe for a moment that I can have personally the smallest interest in injuring any individual in this country who is the possessor or the cultivator of a single acre of its soil. There never can be prosperity in any country while all the numerous cultivators of the soil are permanently depressed and injured ; there can be no doubt that under all circumstances the vast bulk of the sub sistence of our people must be derived from our own soil, and from the direct labour, as cultivators, of a vast portion of our own countrymen. There can be no doubt whatever that any law passed in Parliament for any particular benefit of commerce, unless it be a just law, — and being just, which can be permanent, — must be injurious to the prosperity of agriculture itself. In the county from which I come, Lan cashire, the most prominent in the world for manufactures and commerce, there is at this time a condition of prosperity, when contrasted with what we saw three years ago, so remarkable that it appears to be nothing less than a miracle. I say it is that miracle which we see every day, and yet are unob servant of it : the miracle that the sun shines, and that the showers fall in due season, the earth is prolific, and the great and bountiful Benefactor of our species gives abundance to the people; and that abundance having come for two -or three years in succession, the prostrate millions of working-men who were idle and pauperised are now stand ing erect, and are employed, and well paid, and independent, as much so as I have ever seen them at any former period. Whilst I see that with this abundance there is that prosperity in the most numerous classes of the people, I cannot for a moment suppose that the prosperity of a nation can in any degree depend upon the foolish fallacies which 444 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. ignorant men of all parties have spread in connection with these subjects. But with reference to this game move ment I must ask this meeting to bear in mind that when a man connected with the district which I come from — having no claim by long standing in the House of Commons, nor by lengthened service anywhere — when he comes for ward upon a question like this, you must be certain that to carry it to a successful issue it needs far more than my own individual efforts : it requires the as sistance of intelligent, independent, and experienced men in all parts of the countiy. There are some in this meeting who within the next month will give evidence on your behalf before the Game Committee, and I trust that the names I already have down here will be in creased before that time, so that — at least — half a dozen good witnesses may go from this district, I mean from this particular county.. So far with respect to this Game Committee. There is one more topic to which I would call your attention. An attempt was made only a fortnight ago to pro cure a committee to inquire into other complaints of the agricultural portion of the community ; that committee was refused ; but from the altered tone which I have seen in the House, even within the very short time that I have been a Member of it, I am persuaded that the time is hastening on when all parties in that House — the highest Protectionist and the most active and prominent Free-trader, with all that are between those points — will be anxious to come to a real and honest investi gation into the circumstances which do affect the prosperity of the cultivators of the soil. When once there comes that spirit over the mindss of men, — a spirit which repudiates party — which seeks not to gain advantage here by the spoliation of somebody there — but a spirit which wishes the truth to be fully discovered and established, — when once that spirit prevails upon both sides of the House, as I believe it will before long with reference to some of these matters, then the farmers of this countiy, and every class, may look upon that day as the dawning of a better era, when the cultivators of the soil, the honourable, ancient, numerous, and most necessary of all classes of the community, shall no longer be made the shuttlecock of poli tical parties, but be treated as rational men, and their interests considered in a rational manner. I will say, in conclusion, that I am delighted with this meeting. I have met now, for two years past, with large bodies of farmers in different parts of the country; many have been friendly and others hostile to my views ; I have always gone from them with this con viction, that wherever they have erred, as I believe they have often done, it has been from mistaking their way, and because either they have foUowed blind leaders, or are themselves unsuspectingly blind. But I come more and more to this conviction, that there is no class of men in this countiy who, if they know what is right, and have the power to follow their convictions, will make a more unanimous and determined effort for the attainment of that right than will the tenant-farmers of this king dom. When I see what my friend Mr. Homcastle has done, and the manner in which you have received his services, and expressed your approbation of his conduct, I cannot but think that, as there are thousands who can applaud his conduct, there must be great num bers ready to imitate it. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. BIRMINGHAM, JANUARY 26, 1864. [In November, 1863, Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright spoke at a meeting at Rochdale, on the subject of the English laws affecting Land and Labourers. These speeches were grossly misrepresented by the Times newspaper, and Mr. Cobden charged Mr. Delane, the Editor of that Journal, with intentional and scandalous misrepresentation in his comments upon them. The correspondence between the Statesman and the Editor was instructive, and created much interest at the time. The following speech was delivered as a comment on the conduct of Mr. Delane, and as a defence of the opinions expressed at the meeting at Rochdale.] Although I have often stood before you on this platform, yet I can assure you that on no former occasion have I felt it necessary so much to ask your forbearance and your silent attention as on this occasion. I had no hope a week ago that I should be able to attend here to-night, and to address this large audience, but being here in the per formance of my duty as one of your representatives, I shall endeavour to lay before you the thoughts which are uppermost in my mind, and which bear upon the questions in which we are all deeply interested. There are two subjects which have been treated upon by my hon. Colleague, about which I would say a few words before I come to that which I had in tended to speak about. The first is the question which now keeps Europe in suspense, which may end in a war, or may end in some diplomatic accom modation of a long-standing quarrel. I will not go into the history of the Danish and German dispute. I have received since I came here a long and most able letter from a German Professor resident in this country on behalf of the German view of that question — pro bably he is now within the sound of my voice. I can only tell him, in telling you, that I agree entirely, and from my heart, with every word that my hon. Colleague spoke upon that question ; and I will say further, that if there be a Govemment possible in our day that will plunge this country into war under the pretence of maintaining the balance of power in Europe and sustaining any kingdom there, be it little or great, I say that Government not only is not worthy of the confidence of the people of England, but deserves our execration and abhorrence. There is one other question to which my hon. Colleague has devoted a con siderable portion of his speech. He said, and I believe it, that a year ago he felt it a painful thing to stand here and to avow opinions contrary to those of many of his friends, and contrary to those which I had avowed before. I told you then how painful a thing it was for me to stand up and to contro vert on this platform any of the state- . ments which he had made. I came here to-night intending to say no single 446 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 26, word as to the question between North and South in the United States. My opinion is that the unanimous judgment of the people of England, so far as that is ever shown upon any public question, is in favour of the course which her Majesty's Government have publicly declared it to be their intention to pursue. I believe that my hon. Friend is mistaken in the view he takes of the meaning of the result of what he calls a recognition of the South. I have seen it stated by authority, North as well as South, and by authority which I may term English, and by authority from France, that in the present con dition of that quarrel, recognition, by all the usages of nations, must neces sarily lead, to something more. And, therefore, although there were no ques tion of slavery, even though it were simply a political revolt, and though there were no special moral question connected with it, I believe, looking to the past usage of this country with regard to, the rebellion of the Greeks against Turkey, and with regard to the revolt of the colonies of South America against Spain, that it can be demon strated that these cases afford no support whatever to the argument that we are permitted now to recognise the South, and, that if such recognition did take place now, it could only exasperate still more the terrible strife which exists on the North American continent, and would spread that strife even to Europe itself. I am myself of opinion, as I have been from the first, that the people of America — so numerous, so powerful, so instructed, so capable in every way — will settle the difficulties of that conti nent without asking the old countries of Europe to take any share in them. I believe that in the providence of the Supreme, the slaveholder- — untaught, unteachable by fact or argument, or Christian precept — has been permitted to commit — I will not call it the crime — but the act of suicide. Whether President Lincoln be in favour of aboli tion ; whether the Northerners are unani mous against slavery; whatever may be said or thought with regard to the transactions on that continent, he must be deaf and blind — and worse than deaf and blind — who does not perceive that, through the instrumentality of this strife, that most odious and most inde scribable offence against man and against heaven — the slavery of man, the bondage of four millions of our fellow-creatures — is coming to a certain and rapid end. Sir, I will say of this question that I look forward to the time when I shall stand on this platform with my honour able Colleague, and when he will join with me— for he is honest enough and frank enough to do that — when he will join with me in rejoicing that there does not breathe a slave on the North Ameri can Continent, and that the Union has been completely restored. And not only so, but he will rejoice that England did not in the remotest manner, by a word or a breath, or the raising of a finger, or the setting of a type, do one single thing to promote the atrocious object of the leaders of this accursed insurrection. Now, Sir, I must ask you to listen to me for a little on matters less exciting — and our friends down below here who are enduring a sort of purgatory, — I must ask them to be as compassionate to me as they can, and I will com miserate them as much as possible. About two months ago, on the twenty- fourth of November, I had the opportu nity of making a speech in the town of Rochdale, where I live. The meeting was, I suppose, nearly as large as this. It was called for the purpose of afford ing an opportunity to our distinguished representative, Mr. Cobden, to address his constituents. There are very few meetings of that kind at Rochdale to which I am not invited, and in which I am not expected to take part. On that occasion I took the opportunity of objecting to those persons who think that everything is done in this country that needs to be done — that everybody is so happy that politics are at an end. 1864. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 447 I spoke particularly of the question of the million or million and a half of our labouring population who are employed in cultivating the soil. I need not tell you that from that time to this there has been rather a lively discussion in the newspapers about what was said at that meeting. I have had no opportunity of speak ing since, and I have not thought it necessary to write anything on the matter, but if you will give me your attention for a short time I should like to say a little about it. What I said at that meeting on the subject of the land was this : — ' I should say, if we were fairly repre sented, that feudalism, with regard to the land of England, would perish, and that the agricultural labourer throughout the United Kingdom would be redeemed from that poverty and serfdom which, up to this time, have been his lot. It would take a night, it would take a long speech, to go into the question of the condition of that unfortunate class ; but With laws such as we have, which are intended to, bring vast tracks of land into the possession of one man, that one man may exercise great political power, that system is a curse to the country, and dooms the agricultural labourer, I say, to perpetual poverty and degradation.' There were comments on that speech, but I will only refer to the comments of one paper, the Times. The Times, in an article upon foreign politics, and speaking of small States in Europe who may have something to gain by change, said that they might look upon these changes with something of that satis faction with which the poor might regard Mr. Bright's proposition for the division among them of the lands of the rich. Well, you know that a cor respondence took place almost imme diately, and in consequence of that passage, between my friend Mr. Cobden and Mr. John Delane, the editor of the Times. Now, this is what the Times had said, that I am now about to read, two days after the speech : — ' This language ' — that is, the language of Mf. Cobden ; and yet my language, I am free to say, was more strong upon the general question, I think, than Mr. Cobden's— 'so often repeated and so often calculated to excite, discontent among the poor and half-informed, has really only one intelli gible meaning. " Reduce the electoral franchise ; for when you have done so you will obtain an assembly which will seize on the estates of proprietors, of land and divide them gratuitously among the poor." ' Well, Sir, when this notable newspaper editor was brought to book, what did he say ? On the same day he wrote a letter to Mr. Cobden, the 18th Decem ber, and also published an article in his newspaper. In his letter he says : ' You seem to assume that I charged you with proposing that this division should be accomplished by violence.' Does anybody believe that any one without violence can seize upon the lands of the rich, and distribute them gratuitously, that is, for nothing, amongst the poor? On the same day, in an article, he made this statement : — 'Nobody was likely to charge those two gentlemen with recommending " a- grarian" outrages, for their interest is as much bound up with social order, the rights of property, and the Queen's peace as that of the whole peerage.' Which is true ; but why did not he find that out before he had made that charge ? He says, — 'Nobody who read the single line which Mr. Cobden has seized for a peg to hang his defence upon could imagine for a moment that it pointed to violence.' This is the gentleman who professes to counsel and lead the nation. Now, suppose he had charged Adam Smith, the great apostle of political economy, with approving piracy, or if he had charged John Wesley with being an encourager of drunkenness and pro- 44» SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 26, fanity, would it have been more extra ordinary than that he should charge Mr. Cobden and myself with instigating agrarian outrages and the seizure of the estates of those who now hold them, for the purpose of dividing them among the people, of course taking nothing from the people for them, and therefore giving nothing to the rich for them ? If there be two men in England, I will un dertake to say, who have more conscien tiously and more faithfully preached for twenty-five years the doctrines of ab solute honesty with regard to poli tical questions in England, those two men are Mr. Cobden and myself. But Mr. Cobden came forward to assail Mr. Delane when he made this charge against me. He found a man in a mask endeavouring to stab me in the back, — for he had not seen that the same man had been, in a previous article, also stabbing him, — and he came forward, and dragged his mask from him, and he showed him to the gaze of the whole nation and of the world. And at last, after denial and equivocation of every kind, this un masked editor of this great journal was obliged to retire from the personal part of this controversy, and to skulk back into his anonymous hiding-place, which suits him better. I will tell you how it was. Neither Mr. Cobden nor I have ever said any thing to show that we thought it desir able to abolish by force of law anony mous writing in our newspapers; but Mr. Cobden laments, as I do, and as you all do, that the anonymous system is inevitably a shelter for a man who has no sense of honour. I recollect a description which I am sure will suit Mr. Delane admirably. It was pub lished some time ago in the city of New York, and described a notorious poli tician there who, if 1 am not mistaken, has been at the elbow of the New York correspondent of the Times for the last twelve months — with what happy suc cess to the forecast and the honesty of that paper we all know. It was said of him that ' he was a just man and a righteous man, and that he walked up rightly before the world, but when he was not before the world his walk was slantindicular.' Sir, the Times news paper, notwithstanding all this, is a power in this countiy, and a power in Europe. No man laments more than I do that so much power should be associated with what I will cad a god less intellect and a practical atheism. No one laments more than I do that a paper which was once great in its inde pendence has become now — what shad I say ? — domesticated", for the editor of the Times is now domesticated in the houses of Cabinet Ministers and mem bers of high families in London. He has learned now, — in this day, when that paper might have been more useful than ever, — to fetch and carry for Cam bridge House. And, Sir, for aught I know, looking at what is said in the clubs in London about the dispensation of patronage to men who have been writers for that journal, I am not sure, unless what I say now may make it difficult, that some day or other some proprietor (or chief proprietor) of that paper may not find himself placed in the House of Peers as compensation for the services offered to the present Prime Minister of England. But now, passing from that subject, you will remember that my argument at Rochdale was that the agricultural labouring population of this country were in a deplorable condition, and that I believed that to a large extent it was to be attributed to the unsound and un just laws which regulate the possession and distribution of land. Now you know, of course, living in Birmingham, as well as we know, that, contrary to what exists in some countries, we have three great classes connected with land. We have the landowner first, who is always becoming richer — that is if he does not spend too much. His land is always becoming more valuable. You find him living in a better house, with more gorgeous fittings, with a. more splendid equipage, and following more expensive amusements. [A Voice : ' I 1864. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 449 thought the cotton lords did that.'] No doubt. If you pursue it further, you find the tenant-farmers occupying larger farms, and in connection with the tenant-farmers there is a much greater apparent wealth. But if you come to the labourers, who cultivate the land, by whose toil and whose sweat your tables are furnished with bread and with beef, and with many other things that they produce, you find these labourers at this moment, I believe, at a comparatively greater dis tance from the landlord, and from the tenant probably, than they were at any former period. ['No, no."] There is a gentleman present who differs from me ; I am glad he is in the meeting. I wUl ask you whether, during past years, you have read any letters in the Times newspaper signed by the initials ' S. G. O.' These letters were written by a gentieman of rare intelligence and of great benevolence. His descriptions I believe may be entirely relied upon. If any of you have read some letters written three or four months ago from parts of Buckinghamshire and published in the Star newspaper, with regard to the condition of that population, — you will know what it is that I mean, — but if you are unwilling to take their evi dence, let us take the evidence of a witness that nobody here wid call in question, and that is the evidence of the Saturday Review. On the 26th of September last there was an article in that journal on ' Agricultural La bourers,' in which it said — and I beg you to listen to it, for, in point of fact, it is the great part of my speech. The extract from the article reads thus : — 'When the dull season of the year comes round [it is between October and the meeting of Parliament] all sorts of odd persons and things have their share of public attention, and even agricultural labourers are pitied and discussed. At other times they live on with no one much to care for them — the farmer look ing on them as his natural enemies, the paison's kindly soul getting weary of his long combat with their helpless stolid ignorance, and the squire not knowing what he can do for them further than build two or three Elizabethan cottages, covered with honeysuckle, close to his gates.'And then the writer of the article pro ceeds to say that when foreigners come here and read of the condition of agri cultural labourers they must be much shocked, for he adds : — ' We are moved to a languid shame and sadness by thinking how true the picture is, and what wretched, uncared-for, un taught brutes the people are who -raise the crops on which we live.' And then : — 'There is a wailing over the dirt and vice and misery that must prevail in houses where seven or eight persons, of both sexes and all ag;es, are penned up together for the night in the one rickety, foul, vermin-haunted bedroom. The pic ture of agricultural life unrolls itself before us as it is painted by those who know it best. We see the dull clouded mind, the bovine gaze, the brutality and recklessness, the simple audacity of vice, the confused hatred of his betters, which mark the English peasant, unless some happy fortune has saved him from the general lot, and persuaded him that life " has .something besides beer that the poor man may have and may relish." ' He then goes on to declare that 'the old feudalism'- — feudalism is precisely the thing I mentioned — ' The old feudalism of England — the state of things when there yet were serfs, and when the lords of the soil were almost a different order of beings — still colours the relations of the rich and the poor.' And perhaps you would like to know what he says an agricultural labourer should be. The writer states : — ' It is looked on as the duty and place of the poor man to stay in his native village for ever ; to work hard for ten or 29 45° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 26, twelve shillings a-.week, and bring up a large family respectably on the money; to touch his hat to the gentry, to 'go to church regularly, and to make out as much as he can of the service; to hate the public-house, and feel no longing for company and a bright fire or gossip, and to be guided towards heaven by the curate and the young ladies. This is the poor man which modern feudalism actually pro duces, and who may be seen by any one who stands opposite the door of the village beershop on a Saturday evening.' Now this is the testimony of the Saturday Review, and what do you think the writer of the article from which I have just quoted proposes? — he proposes that instead of a man re ceiving parochial relief from the parish, he shall be allowed to receive it from that larger area, namely, from the Union ; and that a law which he says is hardly ever put in practice should be repealed, by which a working-man breaking a contract to work is treated as a felon. I. do, not believe those remedies would be sufficient for the terrible malady which he has described in such powerful language. May I ask you this question ? Is it the unchange able law of Heaven that the agricul tural population of this countiy shall continue in that condition? Writers tell you, that your agriculture is far better than any other .agriculture, that you produce a larger quantity of wheat or any other produce oyer a given sur face. We know that there is the greatest market in the world close at their doors, and the means of conveyance to every part of the kingdom. Then I want to know why it is that the labouring popu lation upon the farms of this country are in the condition I have just described. Is it so in the most civilized parts of Europe; is it so in the United States of America? No. I could give you, if it were not that reading evidence from books is not suited to a speech, and to a great meeting like this — I could read you evidence from every kind of man — from the highest in rank — from the most cultivated in mind — from the most extensively known in public affairs — I could prove to you, beyond all doubt, that in ad these countries in Europe where the land is divided and the people have a chance of having some of it — those in fact who are industrious and frugal — that the condition of the agricultural and pea sant population is infinitely superior to anything that is" to be seen in Great Britain and Ireland. Well, then, you may ask me very reasonably, — what is the difference be tween the laws of these countries and the laws of ours, and what changes do you propose ? I will tell you in as few words as I can. In the greatest por tion of the Continent of Europe — in France, in Germany, in Belgium, in Holland and in Norway, and in point . of fact it is likely to. become general throughout Europe, the law follows what is believed to be the natural law of affection and justice between parent and children. The large portion of the property of the parent must be by will (or if not by wdl the law will so order it) divided amongst the children; not land alone, but all the property of the parent, according to the number of his children. And you are to be frightened by this law of bequests as if it were something very dreadful. It only fol lows the rale which the majority of your merchants, your manufacturers, and of all the people in the world have followed in these later days, of treating their children with equal affection and with equal justice. On going to the United States, you find a very different state of the law. There a man may leave his property as he likes amongst his children, because the United States' law believes that natural affection and justice are of themselves a sufficient law in the majority of cases, and therefore that it is not necessary to enforce these moral duties by any statute. But if a man dies without leaving a will, the law of the United States takes his pro perty, and looking upon his children ' with equal affection and equal justice, 1864. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 45i makes that distribution which it believes the just and tiving parent would have made. But if you come to this countiy what do you find? You find this, that with regard to all kinds of property, except what is called real property, (meaning the land of the country and the houses upon it,) the law does exactly the same thing. It divides it equally amongst the children, because it knows that this is what the parent should have done, and would have done, if he had been a just parent. But when it comes to the question of the land, our law is con trary to the European law which makes a statute according to natural justice, contrary to the United States' law, which, when there is no will, makes a distribution also in accordance with natural justice. Thus our law steps in and does that which natural justice would forbid. Now I should like to know if anybody is prepared to deny this. Personalty, that is, property which is not land, is divided equally ; the pro perty which is land is not divided equally, but is given to the eldest son in one lump. Now, tell me whether the principle which the law of Europe for the most part wishes to enforce, that which the law of America enforces when there is no will, that which we enforce when land is not in question — whether that is not a more just law, does not approve itself more to the hearts of men, and before the eye of Heaven, than a law by which we send beggars into the world, — it may be half-a-dozen children, — that we may make one rich in the possession of un necessary abundance ? Vfhat are the reasons — these things are not done without reasons — ask any body what are the reasons, and you are told, perhaps, that they are high political reasons. These high political reasons are often very curious. In some countries — in Turkey, for example — it has been the custom for a long time, and is hardly abandoned yet, that the wielder of the sceptre should destroy his younger brothers, lest they should become com petitors with him for the throne. What would you think if the law of this country doomed all the younger chil dren to a want of freedom and to a total want of education, — if it conferred all the freedom and all the education on the eldest sons, and left the others to go to the streets? It would be as reasonable to cut off all the younger boys and girls from all education and all freedom, as it is to cut them off from their share of their father's property. But you will find to-morrow morning, in all probability, that the editor in this town, — who does not generally, as I have noticed, serve you up very strong meat, — will say, if he comments on this part of. my speech, what use would it be to make a law that the property shall be divided in cases where there is no will, when men die so seldom without making a will, and will argue that the difference wid be very small. I will tell you what difference it would make. It would take the tremendous sanction of the law from the side of evil, and put it on the side of good. There is a case — it is the only one which occurs to me — bearing upon this point. About the time when the Ame rican colonies were severed from this country, the laws of primogeniture and entail were enforced in the State of Vir- , ginia in the most rigid manner. Mr. Jefferson, who was afterwards President of the Republic, considered it one of the greatest acts of his life that he prevailed upon the Legislature of Virginia to abolish these laws. You will find this statement in his Life, ¦ — ' The class which thus provided for the perpetua tion of its wealth also monopolized the civil honours of the colony.' You will be able to judge whether that is not very much the case in this country. Amongst the reasons which he gave for abolishing the law of entails was that he wished ' to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, and scattered with equal hand through out all its conditions.' And when he 29 — 2 45^ SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 26, came to the abolition of the law and custom of primogeniture, that is, by the enactment of a law that property should be equally divided whenever the parents did not leave a will, it is said by his biographer that these laws — ' Have not merely altered the distribu tion of that part of the landed property which is transmitted to surviving relatives by the silent operation of law, but they have also operated on public opinion so as to influence the testamentary disposi tion of it by the proprietors, without which last effect the purpose of the Legis lature might have been readily defeated. The cases are now very rare in which a parent makes, by his will, -a much more unequal distribution of his property among his children than the law itself would make. It is thus that laws, themselves the creatures of public opinion, often powerfully re-act on it.' And he goes on to show that the effect of the distribution was to lessen the chances of a man being so enormously rich, and to give an • opportunity to a large number to become moderately so. He said further, that if there were fewer coaches and six in the State of Virginia, there were twenty times as many car riages and pairs. I have thus briefly touched upon the question of primogeniture. The ques tion of entails is much of the same kind, and with regard to its, effect upon the public I shall only say a sentence or . two. The object of entailing land is to keep great estates together, and to keep them in one family. Upon ithis system land in this country is some times tied up for fifty, or eighty, or .a hundred years, no person having power to sell it, however advantageous it might be to the proprietors that the land should be sold. And then, if you come to the question of the difficulties of transfer, I might ask gentlemen near me connected with the law — and they will tell you that it always takes months, and it sometimes takes years, to prove a title; and the cost of this in money comes to no inconsiderable portion of the purchase money of the property. Now, may I ask you what is the political reason for which this state of things is maintained? It is for the very reason for which this system was estabbshed eight hundred years ago — that there may be in this country a handful of persons, three or four times as many as there are here — twice as many perhaps — who are the owners of nearly all the land, in whose hand is concentrated nearly all the power, by whom the Govemment of the country is mainly conducted, and amongst whom the patronage of the Government is mainly distributed. In every country in the world, as far as I know, the possessors of land are the possessors of power. In France, at this moment, we all know perfectly well that, notwith standing there may be a revolution now and then in the streets of Paris, if you come to the question of voting, the ma jority of the voting population at this moment are found in the number of the proprietors of the land. Ten or twelve years ago it was their suffrages which conferred the supreme power on the present Emperor of the French. If you go across the Atlantic, and study the political system of the United States, where almost. all the farmers are owners of their farms, you will find that they are the holders of political power. The city of New York may denounce the policy of the Government at Washing ton; but it is the land-owning fanners — the cultivators of the great States in the interior of the country — who are the real holders of political power, and by whose will alone the President of the United States is able to carry on the great matters which belong to his exalted station. It is the same in the Southern States, for the great planting population — the owners of immense plantations — are the life and soul of Southern politics. And if you come to our own countiy — to your own county, Warwickshire, or any county you choose to walk into — you will find that two or three great landowners can sit down 1864. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 453 together and determine who shall or who shall not go to Parliament, as the pretended representative of the population in that county. I believe that with these vast pro perties, which are of no real advantage to those who hold them — for ioo,oooJ. a-year, or 200,000/. a-year, can give no man greater real happiness than 10,000/. or 5,000/. a-year, — I say these great properties, with great political power, form what we call our great territorial system — a system which prevails to an extent in this country which is probably unknown in any other, but which leaves the cultivator of the soil ignorant, and hopeless, and dependent, and degraded. There is, as you know, a great tendency to increase the size of farms throughout the countiy, a practice which makes it still more difficult for the labourer ever to become a tenant, or to rise from the condition in which he is. You see a ladder — the social ladder — upon which you wish to see the poor, and depressed, and unfortunate nine-or-ten-shillings-a- week-labourer ascend gradually. You would rejoice to see him get up a few steps and become a farmer, although but in a small way; or the owner of a small piece of land. But you find that for six or eight, or ten feet up the ladder, the steps are broken out ; and, in his low position, he has not a chance of beginning the ascent. Let there be steps in the shape of small farms and small estates, and land freely bought and sold, and then he will have some- tiling to hope for, something to save even his small earnings for, that he may be enabled to purchase or to occupy one of these small farms and get away from the humble and melancholy posi tion in which he is now, to one which I wish, from my soul, every labourer in this country could find himself placed in. Now, Sir, for fear that the Man in the Mask — he has got his mask on again for a time — for fear that the Man in the Mask should misrepresent me to morrow, let me tell you- that I am not against great estates, or great farms, or great factories, but I have a very great liking for small estates, small farms, and small factories. In this countiy, where there is such a rapid creation of wealth, there is always a great power urging to the accumulation of land. I know the case of a nobleman now, in a southern county, from report, who is stated to have an income of 120,000/. a-year; and being a wise man, as re gards his expenditure compared with his income, he only spends— though it is a mystery to me how he spends it — he only spends 40,000/. a-year, and he has 80,000/. a-year left. What does he do with this ? He buys up every farm, every estate, big or little, all over the district, and the consequence is that his immense estate is constantly becoming larger. I do not blame him for that. I applaud, him so far, that he is a man who does not waste his property, and I have heard that among those with whom he lives he is a man of excellent character. There are persons who come from Manchester, from Leeds, and there are some in Birmingham who are able to purchase large estates. There is a tendency to this in this country, where we have so much manufacturing and commercial industry, and wealth to buy estates with. In addition to this, their possession gives great social position and great political influence. I am not com plaining of this. It is a natural, and advantageous,, and healthy thing ; for it is desirable that fanners should have the stimulus of ambition to have a larger farm, and that the men who have an estate should have an ambition — if they can entertain it honestly — to have a larger estate. The stimulus by which men strive at something honourable is useful to the country ; but at the same time, to add to this the force of a most intricate and complicated system of law, to give to this force greater force, is, in my opinion, contrary to all the true. interests of England ; and I believe if it goes on for another half-century, as it has for the last half-century, it will cause great discontent and great em barrassment within this now peaceful kingdom. 454. SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 26, What I propose is this — it is nothing that I have not stated before — it is the most moderate thing that can be pro posed. If you want to see an admirable description of what I think it would be wise to do, you will find it in a paper which certainly is not very Radical — is rather, in my opinion, though conducted with considerable ability, conceited in some of its criticisms upon us — I mean the Spectator. There was an article on Saturday last in this paper on the sub ject of land laws in New York, and although there are only three or four lines about New York in the article, that does not matter, for it is admirably written. In one place it reads as fol lows : — ' No doubt Mr. Bright would consider this not sufficient change for the purposes he wishes.' He is quite mistaken. The changes which' he pro poses are more extensive than any changes I have ever proposed, either in public or in private. What are these changes? First of all, that the law shall declare that when any person owning property dies without making a distribution of it by will, the law shall distribute it upon the same principle that it now adopts when it divides — I am now speaking of landed property — any other kind of property. For ex ample : Suppose a man has got money in the bank — I wish everybody had — suppose he has machinery in his mill, merchandise in his warehouse, ships upon the ocean, or that he has shares, or the parchments for them in his safe — if he dies, the Govemment by the law, or rather the law itself, makes a distribution of all that property amongst all his children, in accordance with the great universal law of natural parental affection and justice. Then, I say, let that principle be extended to all the property which a man may die pos sessed of; and, so far as that goes, I want no further change. Then, with regard to the question of entails, I would say this : the Spectator proposes that a man, by entailing his property — so far as I can understand — shall only prevent himself and his next heir from disposing of it — that there shall be, in point of fact, only two persons in the entail. Now, what I propose is, that a man may leave his property to as many persons as he likes, to A, B, C, D, and E and F, and so on all through the alphabet, if they are all alive at the time he makes his will, and he can put all their names into it. But at present he can leave it to these people, and to a child then unborn, and who shad not be bom, it may be, till twenty years after he has made his will. I would cut that off. I contend that it should be left to persons who are in existence, and whose names are in the will, and you will find that as A, B, and C died it would finady come into the hands of a man who would have the absolute disposal of, and who could keep, or sell, or give, or waste it as he pleased. And I believe it will be much better for the public when that freedom of transfer is given to the possessors of land which is given to the possessors of every other kind of property. If I were to sit down for ten minutes and a lawyer were to take my place, he could tell you what a trouble our law is; and — although I am sorry that some of them think that they make a good thing out of it — what a curse it is to a man who buys landed property or who sells it. Everything which I am proposing is carried out, I believe, through most of the States in the American Union, and to a greater extent on the Continent of Europe, and is being adopted in the Australian colonies. It is the most curious thing in the world, that when ever an Englishman leaves these shores — whether it is the effect of the salt air, or of sea-sickness, or the result of that prolonged meditation which a voyage of some weeks' duration invites, I do not know — but whenever an English man leaves these shores, the effect is to peel off, not the rags of his body, but the verminous rags from his intellect and soul. He leaves behind him in Eng land all the stupidity which some of us cherish, and he lands in Australia with 1864. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 455 his vision so clear, that he can see things in a common-sense manner. I want to ask you as reasonable men, as men of business— there is not a man who cannot understand this question moderately well — is this spoliation ? Is this agrarian outrage ? Is this stimulat ing the working-man and the agricul tural labourer to — what shall I say ? — to, it may be, incendiarism or to some thing worse ? It is nothing of the kind; it is but laying before them those just principles of law and practice which are admitted to be just in every other country in the world than this, and which we admit to be just with regard to everything else, except the single article of land. We are charged with all sorts of dreadful things by that gentleman in the Mask. On the 27th of November he wrote this of Mr. Cobden. He said : — ' He [Mr. Cobden] stoops down and picks up a weapon which has never yet been used but for anarchy and revolution. Is it not in fact to tell the labourer and the workman to look over the fence of the neighbouring proprietor, and learn to think that they have a natural right to a slice of the soil? Surely, if they are industrious and frugal, and can save the means to purchase, and there be anybody who would wish to sell, and the law steps in and makes it difficult to sell and to buy, then, I say, that labourer has a right to look over the hedge, and to feel that the law deals a grievous injustice to him. And it is this gentleman in the Mask that frightens the landed proprietors. I met the other day with a gentleman connected with one of the largest pro perties in the kingdom. He said to me, — and he is a very liberal and thoughtful man, — he said to me, ' You have no idea of the terror which your speeches createamongst landedgentlemen.' Now, I never frighten any of my neighbours. I do not know why I should be so alarming to those gentlemen who live in their great houses and castles. But the fact is the landed gentlemen are not a wise class. There are brilliant excep tions. There are men amongst them, many of whom cannot be surpassed by any of their own class, or of any other class in the world. But as a class, and, perhaps, one might say it of nearly every class — I believe it is true of that to which I belong in Lancashire — they are not a wise class. They know some thing of agriculture— county Members have to get it up for agricultural dinners — and they know something of horses — and they know all that can be known on the subject of game. But on the principles of law and of government, speaking of them as a whole, and judg ing of them by their past course, they are dark as night itself. Would you believe it — young men here do not re collect it — that the landed proprietors could never find out, till Mr. Cobden and a few others told them, that the Com-law was a great injury to them 1 They did not know that it actually lowered the value of their land, and diminished the security of their rents, and that it loaded them with an in conceivable amount of public odium; whilst, at the same time, it beggared hundreds and thousands of the people, and it menaced this nation with re bellion. Mr. Cobden and I, and others who acted with us, but we chiefly, because perhaps we were the most prominent, were slandered then by the gentleman in the Mask, just as we have been now. The Times was as foul-mouthed upon us twenty years ago as it is at this moment. It said that we went about the country setting class against class. It said that our views led to the confiscation of landed property. It said everything that was spiteful and untrue, as it says now. And yet, is there any man in this country who will not admit that property is more secure in consequence of the abolition of that law, which land owners believed to be the anchor of their safety, and that animosities be tween class and class have been allayed ? And who shall tell how much it is 456 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JAN. 26, owing to this reform that our Queen at this moment wields an unchallenged sceptre over a tranquil realm ? A land owner in the House of Commons, an old Member of the House, a repre sentative of a south-western county, a man of excellent character, for whom I have always had the greatest respect, even when he was most in the wrong, — he told me not long ago, speaking about the Corn-law, that they did not then know the good we were doing to his class. I smiled and said to him, 'If you would only have faith, I could tell one or two, other things that would do you just as much good if you would let us try them.' But he had no faith. Now, I will just say to, the land owners that I was never more their friend than when discussing, this question which I am occupied with to-night, without the least animosity to them, and with a belief as firm as I ever had on the question of the Com-law, that their interests are bound up with the interests of the people in the right solution of this question. I would ask, then, to. what are they tending under the operation of these laws ? They are becoming every year smaller and smaller in number. The large owners are rapidly eating up the smaller ones. The census returns show that the number of landed proprietors is but a handful in the nation, and every day becoming fewer and fewer. Their labourers remain at the 9s. or 10s. a- week. Somebody will write to the paper to-morrow and say they get 1 2s. ; but bear in mind that they do not always receive wages on wet days, and I believe the average money-income of the agricultural labourer throughout the United Kingdom will not exceed — and many persons will say it will not reach — 10s. a-week. Now the smaller in number these landed proprietors become, the more, it may be, these labourers will become discontented. There may arise some political accident, and political accidents are almost as unlooked-for as other accidents. You do not hear the tread of the earthquake which, topples down your firmest architecture, and you do not see — the countiy gentlemen do not see— the tread of that danger, it may be that catastrophe, which inevitably follows upon prolonged unjust legis lation. There may come a time, and I dare prophesy that it will come if there be an obstinate retention of our present system, when there will be a movement in this country to establish here, not what I believe to be the just and moderate and sufficient plan which I recommend, but a plan which shall be in accordance with that which is established by the Code Napoleon in France, and which is spreading rapidly over the whole of the Continent of Europe. And I would ask them again how do they purpose to keep their popu lation, if this system is to be main tained ? And now, addressing you working- men who are here, I beg your attention to two or three observations on this point. America, though three thousand miles off, is not so far off but that people may go there in about twelve days, and may go there for a sum varying from 2/. to 5/. You know that in this very year — I mean the year which is just passed — 150,000 or 160,000 persons have sailed from this country to New York. Every man who settles there is not blinded by the mystifications and the- falsities uttered by the New York correspondent of the Times. He is there and can see what the working- man earns, and how he is treated, and what he is, and he writes over to his friends in this country — as has been the case for years in Ireland — and the result is that Ireland is being drained, not of its surplus population, but of the popu lation absolutely necessary to the proper cultivation of the soil. Let me tell you a fact, and if you do not treasure it up in your minds, I hope some of those gentlemen, the landowners, who think I am very hostile to them, will just consider it, if they have time, as they eat their breakfast and read the paper to-morrow, or the next day. In America there are 1864. THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND. 457 140,000,000 of acres of land, surveyed, mapped out, set apart for those who are ready to settle upon them. In the year 1861 (that was the first year before the war attained its present proportions), there were not less than 40,000 new farms, averaging eighty acres each, occupied in the Western States. But the Government of the United States, not content with that measure of pro gress, framed an Act which came into operation on the 1st of January, 1863, called the Homestead Act. I have a copy of the Act here, and the circular which was issued from the Department of State, giving directions as to how this Act should be worked throughout the Union. What is the Homestead Act ? It is this. It says that any man of twenty-one years of age, or younger, if he has been for a fortnight or a little more in the service of the United States, whether in the army or navy — any man of twenty-one years of age may come into, these territories, may choose what is called a section, which is 160 acres of land, being one-fourth of a square mile, and on payment of a fee of ten dollars, which is equal to two pounds English, may apply to have this land conveyed to him for no other payment for a term of five years. It cannot be alienated, he is not allowed to sell it, it remains in his possession. At the end of five years, he having done to it what the Government requires, that is, settled upon it and begun cultivation and so forth, the law gives him what is called a patent, but what we should call a Parliamentary title, and the land is his own absolute freehold for ever. Now it would not take more than 1 5/. for a man to go from Birmingham to the territory where this land is to be disposed of. If he had not got any money by which he could take up 160 acres, he might engage himself to a neighbouring farmer, and would get, I believe, now, about twenty shillings a-week wages, besides his board and lodgings, and if he worked as a labourer for two or three years he would be able to save a sum sufficient for him to commence the cultivation of a portion of his farm, and would be settled down there as a farmer and free holder on his own estate. Do not let me leave you with the idea that there is no rough and rugged career in this. There is much that is rough and much that is rugged, but there is a good deal of that sort in this country now. And when a man looks upon those children that create even in the poorest house, sometimes, a gleam of joy, — when he thinks what those boys and girls must be in this country, — that they can never rise one step higher than that which he occupies now as. an agricultural labourer, and when he looks abroad and he sees them, not labourers in the sense in which we speak here, not tenants even, but free holders, and landowners, and farmers of their own property — then, I say, that the temptation held out to men here to emigrate, if men knew all the facts, would be irresistible to hundreds of thousands who have now no thought of moving to another country. But the agricultural labourer is not as he once was, in one respect. There are some feeble efforts made to give him some little instruction. There are newspapers published at a price which at one time was deemed impossible, and these find their way into agricultural villages. And the labourers will gradually begin to open their eyes, and to see that a change of their position is not so impossible as once they thought it was. What is it the United States offer more ? They offer social equality — they offer political equality — they offer to every child of every man in whose face I am now looking, education — from the learn ing of his alphabet to, if he has the capacity to travel so far, the highest knowledge of classics and mathematics which are offered to the best students in the colleges of this country. And all this without the payment of one single farthing, except that general payment in which all the people participate in the school-rate of the various States of the Union. I ask you if I am wrong in saying to 45« SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. the rich and the great, that I believe, if they knew their own interests, that it would be worth their while to try to make this country a more desirable country for the labourer to live in. If they disregard this great question, we, who are of the middle, and not abso lutely powerless class, shall have to decide between the claims of territorial magnates and the just rights of millions of our countrymen. Some men I meet with — and now and then I wonder where they were born, arid why they came into the world — regard these ter ritorial magnates as idols before whom we are all to bow down in humble sub mission. Travellers tell us there is a tribe in Africa so entirely given up to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols that they do not even leave room for their families. It may be so in this country. We build up a system which is injurious to our political freedom, and is destructive of the intelligence, and the comfort, and the morality, and the best interests of our producing and working classes. Now, am I the enemy of any class, when I come forward to state facts like these, and to explain principles such as these ? Shall we go on groping con tinually in the dark, and make no effort to strengthen our position ? Do not sup pose because I stand here oftener to find fault with the laws of my countiy than to praise them, that I am less English or less patriotic, or that I have less sym pathy for my country or my countrymen than-other men have. I want our country to be populous, to be powerful, and to be happy. But this can only be done — it never has been done in any countiy — but by just laws justly administered. I plead only for what I bedeve to be just. I wish to do wrong to no man. For twenty-five years I have stood be fore audiences — great meetings of my countrymen — pleading only for justice. During that time, as you know, I have endured measureless insult, and have passed through hurricanes of abuse. I need not tell you that my clients have not been generally the rich and the great, but rather the poor and the lowly. They cannot give me place and dignities and wealth ; but honourable service in their cause yields me that which is of far higher and more lasting value — the consciousness that I have laboured to expound and uphold laws, which, though they were not given amid the thunders of Sinai, are not less the commandments of God, and not less intended to promote and secure the happiness of men. PEACE. EDINBURGH, OCTOBER 13, 1853. [This speech was spoken at the Conference of the Peace Society, held at Edinburgh in the autumn of 1853. The relation of this meeting to the Russian war, then impending, made the gathering more than ordinarily important.] It is a great advantage in this country, I think, that we have no want of ample criticism. Whatever we may have said yesterday and to-day will form the sub ject of criticism, not of the most friendly character, in very many newspapers throughout the United Kingdom. I recollect when we met in Manchester, that papers disposed to be friendly, warned us as to the course we were taking, and that the time was ill-chosen for a peace meeting. It was said that the people were excited against France, and were alarmed at their almost total defencelessness, and that there was no use in endeavouring to place before them the facts which the peace men offered to their audience. The result showed that they were mistaken, for you will recollect that, while up to that meeting there was a constantly swelling tide of alarm and hostility with regard to France, from the day the Conference was held there was a gradual receding of the tide, that the alarm and appre hension rapidly diminished, and that by the time the House of Commons met in February we were willing to receive from Lord John Russell and other statesmen the most positive assurances that France was not increasing her force, and that there, was not the slightest reason to believe that the Government of France entertained anything but the most friendly feeling towards the Go vernment of this countiy. The right time to oppose the errors and prejudices of the people never comes to the eyes of those writers in the public press who pander to these prejudices. They say, We must not do so and so, we shall embarrass the Govemment. But lumour says the Government has been pretty well embarrassed already. They say that we shall complicate the question if we interfere ; but it cannot well be more complicated than it is ; for hardly anybody but the peace men can tell how to unravel it. Next, they tell us that we shall impair the harmony of opinion which there appears to be in the country, from the fact of there having been three or four insignificant meetings, by which the Government is to be impelled to more active and ener getic measures. Now, what is it that we really want here ? We wish to pro test against the maintenance of great armaments in time of peace; we wish to protest against the spirit which is not only willing for war, but eager for war ; and we wish to protest, with all the em phasis of which we are capable, against the mischievous policy pursued so long by this country, of interfering with the internal affairs of ' other countries, and thereby leading to disputes, and often to disastrous wars. 460 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. oct. 13, I mentioned last night what it was we were annually spending on our arma ments. Admiral Napier says that the hon. Member for the West Riding, who can do everything, had persuaded a feeble Government to reduce the arma ments of this country to ' nothing.' What is ' nothing ' in the Admiral's estimation ? Fifteen millions a-year! Was all that money thrown away? We have it in the estimates, we pay it out of the taxes — it is appropriated by Parliament, it sustains your dockyards, pays the wages of your men, and mainr tains your ships. Fifteen millions ster- Ung paid in the very year when the Admiral says that my hon. Friend re duced the armaments of the countiy to nothing ! But take the sums which we spent for the past year in warlike pre parations — seventeen millions, and the interest on debt caused by war — twenty- eight millions sterling ; and it amounts to 45,000,000/. What are our whole exports ? Even this year, far the largest year of exports we have ever known, they may amount to 80,000,000/. Well, then, plant some one at the mouth of every port and harbour in the United Kingdom, and let him take every alter nate ship, that leaves your rivers and your harbours with all its valuable cargo on board, and let him carry it off as tribute, and it will not amount to the cost that you pay every year for a war, that fifty years ago was justified as much as it is attempted to justify this impending war, and for the preparations which you now make after a peace which has lasted for thirty-eight years. Every twenty years — in a nation's life nothing, in a person's life something — every twenty years a thousand millions sterling out of the industry of the hard working people of this United King dom, are extorted, appropriated, and ex pended to pay for that unnecessary and unjust war, and for the absurd and ruinous expenditure which you now incur. A thousand millions every twenty years! Apply 1 thousand millions, not every twenty years, but for one period of twenty years, to objects of good in this country, and it would be rendered more like a paradise than anything that his tory records of man's condition, and would make so great a change in these islands, that a man having seen them as they are now, and seeing them as they might then be, would not recognise them, as the same countiy, nor our population as the same people. But what do we expend ad this for ? Bear in mind that admirals, and generals, and statesmen defended that great war, and that your newspapers, with scarcely an exception, were in favour of it, and denounced and ostracised hundreds of good men who dared, as we dare now, to denounce the spirit which would again lead this country into war. We went to war that France should not choose its own Government; the grand conclusion was that no Bonaparte should sit on the throne of France ; yet France has all along been changing its Govem ment from that time to this, and now we find ourselves with a Bonaparte on the throne of France, and, for anything I know to the contrary, likely to remain there a good while. So far, therefore, for the calculations of our forefathers, and for the results of that enormous expenditure which they have saddled upon us. We object to these great armaments as provoking a war spirit. I should like to ask, what was the object of the Chobham exhibition ? There were spe cial trains at the disposal of Members of Parliament, to go down to Chobham the one day, and to Spithead the other. What was the use of our pointing to the President of the French Republic two years ago, who is the Emperor now, and saying that he was spending his time at playing at soldiers in his great camp at Satoiy, and in making great circuses for the amusement of his soldiers ? We, too, are getting into the way of playing at soldiers, and camps, and fleets, and the object of this is to raise up in the spirit of the people a feeling antagonistic to peace, and to lender the people — the. deluded, hard working, toiling people — satisfied with i853- PEA CE. 461 the extortion of 17,000,000/. annually, when, upon the very principles of the men who take it, it might be demonstrated that one-half of the money would be amply sufficient for the purpose to which it is devoted. What observation has been more common during the discus sion upon Turkey than this — ' Why are we to keep up these great fleets if we are not to use them? Why have we our Mediterranean fleet lying at Besika Bay, when it might be earning glory, and adding to the warlike renown of the countiy ?' This is just what comes from the maintenance of great fleets and armies. There grows up an esprit de corps — there grows a passion for these things, a powerful opinion in their favour, that smothers the immorality of the whole thing, and leads the people to tolerate, under those excited feelings, that which, under feelings of greater temperance and moderation, they would know was hostile to their country, as it is opposed to everything which we re cognise as the spirit of the Christian religion. Then, we are against intervention. Now, this question of intervention is a most important one, for this reason, that it comes before us sometimes in a form so attractive that it invites us to embrace it, and asks us by all our love of freedom, by all our respect for men struggling for their rights, to interfere in the affairs of some other countiy. And we find now in this country that a great number of those who are calling out loudest for interference are those who, being very liberal in their politics, are bitterly hostile to the despotism and exclusiveness of the Russian Govern ment. But I should like to ask tiiis meeting what sort of intervention we are to have? There are three kinds — one for despotism, one for liberty ; and you may have an intervention like that now proposed, from a vague sense of danger which cannot be accurately de scribed. What have our interventions been up to this time ? I will come to that of which Admiral Napier spoke by-and-by. It is not long since we intervened in the case of Spain. The foreign enlistment laws were suspended ; and English soldiers went to join the Spanish legion, and the Govemment of Spain was fixed in the present Queen of that country; and yet Spain has the most exclusive tariff against this country in the world, and a dead Englishman is there reckoned little better than a dead dog. Then take the case of Portugal. We interfered, and Admiral Napier was -one of those employed in that inter ference, to place the Queen of Portugal ¦on the throne, and yet she has violated ¦ every clause of the charter which she had sworn to the people; and in 1849, under the Government of Lord John Russell, and with Lord Palmerston in the Foreign Office, our fleet entered the Tagus and destroyed the Liberal party, by allowing the Queen to escape from their hands, when they would have driven her to give additional guarantees for liberty ; and from that time to this she has still continued to violate every clause of the charter of the country. Now, let us come to Syria ; what has Admiral Napier said about the Syrian war ? He told us that the English fleet was scattered all about the Mediter ranean, and that if the French fleet had come to Cherbourg, and had taken on board 50,000 men and landed them on our coasts, all sorts of things would have befallen us. But how happened it that Admiral Napier and his friends got up the quarrel with the French? Be cause we interfered in the Syrian ques tion when we had no business to interfere whatever. The Egyptian Pasha, the vas sal of the Sultan, became more powerful than the Sultan, and threatened to de pose him and place himself as monarch upon the throne of Constantinople ; and but for England, he would assuredly have done it. Why did we interfere? What advantage was it to us to have a feeble monarch in Constantinople, when you might have had an energetic and powerful one in Mehemet Ali? We interfered, however, and quarrelled with France, although she neither declared war nor landed men upon our coast. 462 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 13, France is not a countiy of savages and banditti. The Admiral's whole theory goes upon this, that there is a total want of public morality in France, and that something which no nation in Eu rope would dare to do, or think of doing, which even Russia would scom to do, would be done without any warning by the polished, civilised, and intelligent nation across the Channel. But if they are the friends of freedom who think we ought to go to war with Russia because Russia is a despotic country, what do you say to the inter ference with the Roman Republic three or four years ago ? What do you say to Lord John Russell's Govemment, — ¦ Lord Palmerston with his own hand writing the despatch, declaring that the Govemment of her Majesty, the Queen of England, entirely concurred with the Government of the French Republic in believing that it was desirable and necessary to re-establish the Pope upon his throne? The French army, with the full concurrence of the English Go vemment, crossed over to Italy, invaded Rome, destroyed the Republic, banished its leading men, and restored the Pope ; and on that throne he sits still, main tained only by the army of France. My hon. Friend has referred to the time when Russia crossed through the very Principalities we hear so much about, and entered Hungary. I myself heard Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons go out of his way needlessly, but inten tionally, to express a sort of approba tion of the intervention of Russia in the case of Hungary. I heard him say, in a most unnecessary parenthesis, that it was not contrary to international law, or to the law of Europe, for Russia to send an army into Hungary to assist Austria in putting down the Hungarian insurrection. I should like to know whether Hungary had not constitu tional rights as sacred as ever any countiy had — as sacred, surely, as the Sovereign of Turkey can have upon his throne. If it were not contrary to in ternational law and to the law of Europe for a Russian army to invade Hungary, to suppress there a struggle which called for, and- obtained too, the sym pathy of every man in favour, of freedom in every part of the world, I say, how can it be contrary to international law and the law of Europe for Russia to threaten the Sultan of Turkey, and to endeavour to annex Turkey to the Russian Empire ? I want our policy to be consistent. Do not let us interfere now, or concur in or encourage the interference of any body else, and then get up a hypocritical pretence on some other occasion that we are against interference. If you want war, let it be for something that has at least the features of grandeur and of nobility about it, but not for the miser able, decrepit, moribund Government which is now enthroned, but which cannot long last, in the city of Con stantinople. But Admiral Napier is alarmed lest, if Russia was possessed of Turkey, she would, somehow or other, embrace all Europe — that we ad should be in the embrace of the Bear — and we know very well what that is. I believe that is all a vague and imaginary dan ger ; and I am not for going to war for imaginary dangers. War is much too serious a matter. I recollect when France endeavoured to lay hold on Algeria, it was said that the Mediter ranean was about to become a French lake. I do not believe that France is a bit more powerful in possessing it. It requires 100,000 French soldiers to maintain Algeria ; and if a balance- sheet could be shown of what Algeria has cost France, and what France has gained from it, I believe you would have no difficulty whatever in discover ing the reason why the French finances show a deficit, and why there is a rumour that another French loan is about to be created. But they tell us that if Russia gets to Constantinople, Englishmen will not be able to get to India by the overland journey. Mehemet Ali, even when Ad miral Napier was battering down his towns, did not interfere with the car riage of our mails through his territory. 1853- PEACE. 4^3 We bring our overland mails at pre sent partly through Austria, and partly through France, and the mails from Canada pass through the United States ; and though I do not think there is the remotest possibility or probability of anything of the kind happening, yet I do not think that, in the event of war with these countries, we should have our mails stopped or our persons ar rested in passing through these coun tries. At any rate it would be a much more definite danger that would drive me to incur the ruin, guilt, and suffering of war. But they ted us, further, that the Emperor of Russia would get India. That is a stiU more remote contingency. If I were asked as to the probabilities of it, I should say that, judging from our past and present policy in Asia, we are more likely to invade Russia from India than Russia is to invade us in India. The policy we pursue in Asia is much more aggressive, aggrandising, and warlike than any that Russia has pursued or threatened during our time. But it is just possible that Russia may be more powerful by acquiring Turkey. I give the Admiral the benefit of that admission. But I should like to ask whether, even if that be trae, it is a sufficient reason for our going to war, and entering on what perhaps may be a long, ruinous, and sanguinary struggle, with a powerful empire like Russia ? ( What i? war? I believe that. half the ¦people that talk about war have not ' the slightest idea of what it is. In a ' short sentence it may be summed up ) to be the combination and concentra- ( tion of all the honors, atrocities, crimes, ( and sufferings of which human nature on this globe is capable. But what is even a rumour of war ? Is there any body here who has anything in the funds, or who is the owner of any rail way stock, or anybody who has a large stock of raw material or -manufactured goods ? The funds have recently gone down 10 per cent. I do not say that the fall is all on account of this danger of war, but a great proportion of it undoubtedly is. A fall of 10 per cent, in the funds is nearly 80,000,000/. sterling of value, and railway stock having gone down 20 per cent, makes a difference of 60,000,000/. in the value of the rail way property of this country. Add the two — 140,000,000/. — and take the diminished prosperity and value of manufactures of all kinds during the last few months, and you will under state the actual loss to the country now if you put it down at 200,000,000/. sterling. But that is merely a rumour of war. That is war a long way off — the small cloud, no bigger than a man's hand — what will it be if it comes nearer and becomes a fact ? And surely sane men ought to consider whether the case is a good one, the ground fair, the ne cessity clear, before they drag a nation of nearly 30,000,000 of people into a long and bloody struggle, for a decrepit and tottering empire, which all the nations in Europe cannot long sustain. And, mind, war now would take a dif ferent aspect from what it did formerly. It is not only that you send out men who submit to be slaughtered, and that you pay a large amount of taxes — the amount of taxes would be but a feeble indication of what you would suffer. Our trade is now much more extensive than it was ; our commerce is more ex panded, our undertakings are more vast, and war will find you all out at home by withering up the resources of the prosperity enjoyed by the middle and working classes of the country. You would find that war in 1853 would be infinitely more perilous and destructive to our countiy than it has ever yet been at any former period of our history. There is another question which comes home to my mind with a gravity and seriousness which I can scarcely hope to communicate to you. You who lived ' during the period from 1815 to 1822' may remember that this country was probably never in a more uneasy posi- , tion. The sufferings of the working / classes were beyond description, and ' the difficulties, and straggles, and bank ruptcies of the middle classes were such 464 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 13, as few persons have a just idea of. There was scarcely a year in which there was not an incipient insurrection in some parts of the country, arising from the sufferings which the working classes endured. You know very well that the Government of the day em ployed spies to create plots, and to get ignorant men to combine to take un lawful oaths ; and you know that in the town of Stirling, two men who, but for this diabolical agency, might have lived good and honest citizens, paid the pe nalty of their lives for their connection with unlawful combinations of this kind. Well, if you go into war now you will have more banners to decorate your cathedrals and churches. Englishmen will fight now as well as they ever did, and there is ample power to back them, if the country can be but sufficiently excited and deluded. You may raise up great generals. You may have an other Wellington, and another Nelson too ; for this country can grow men capable for every enterprise. Then there may be titles, and pensions, and marble monuments to eternise the men who have thus become great ; but what becomes of you and your country, and your children ? For there is more than this in store. That seven years to which I have referred was a period dangerous to the existence of Govern ment in this country, for the whole sub stratum, the whole foundations of society were discontented, suffering intolerable evils, and hostile in the bitterest degree to the institutions and the Government of the country. Precisely the same things will come again. Rely on it, that injustice of any kind, be it bad laws, or be it a bloody, unjust, and unnecessary war, of neces sity creates perils to every institution in the country. If the Corn-law had con tinued, if it had been impossible, by peaceful agitation, to abolish it, the monarchy itself would not have sur vived the ruin and disaster that it must have wrought. And if you go into a war now, with a doubled population, with a vast commerce, with extended credit, and a wider diffusion of partial education among the people, let there ever come a time like the period be tween 1815 and 1822, when the whole basis of society is upheaving with a sense of intolerable suffering, I ask you, how many years' purchase would you give even for the venerable and mild monarchy under which you have the happiness to live? I confess when I think of the tremendous perils into which unthinking men — men .who do not intend to fight themselves— are wil ling to drag or to hurry this country, I am amazed how they can trifle with interests so vast, and consequences so much beyond their calculation. But, speaking here in Edinburgh to / such an audience — an audience probably y for its numbers as intelligent and as influential as ever was assembled within the walls of any hall in this kingdom — ' I think I may put before you higher/ considerations even than those of pro perty and the institutions of your countiy. I may remind you of duties more solemn, and of obligations more imperative. You profess to be a Chris tian nation. You make it your boast even — though boasting is somewhat out of place in such questions — you make it your boast that you are a Protestant . people, and that you draw your rule of doctrine and practice, as from a well pure and undefiled, from the Uving '' oracles of God, and from the direct reve lation of the Omnipotent. You have even conceived die magnificent project of illuminating the whole earth, even to its remotest and darkest recesses, by the / dissemination of the volume of the New Testament, in whose every page are ' written for ever the words of peace. Within the limits of this island alone, , on every Sabbath, 20,000, yes, far more than 20,000 temples are thrown open, 1 in which devout men and women as semble that they may worship Him who is the ' Prince of Peace.' Is this a reality? or is your Chris- ' tianity a romance ? is your profession ; a dream ? No, I am sure that your Christianity is not a romance, and I am ( i853- PEACE. 4^5 / equally sure that your profession is not a dream. It is because I believe this ' that I appeal to you with confidence, and that I have hope and faith in the future. - 1 believe that we shall see, and at no very distant time, sound economic ' principles spreading much more widely , amongst the people ; a sense of justice growing up in a soil which hitherto has been deemed unfruitful ; and, which will be better than all— the churches of the United Kingdom — the churches of Britain awaking, as it were, from their slumbers, and girding up their loins to more glorious work, when they shall not only accept and believe in the pro phecy, but labour earnestly for its ful filment, that there shall come a time — a blessed time — a time which shall last for ever — when ' nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.' -¦¦-*&<&»-¦¦ 3° FOREIGN POLICY. BIRMINGHAM, OCTOBER 29,. 1858. [This speech, was spoken at a banquet given to Mr. Bright in the Town Hall of Birmingham, on the occasion of his first visit to his constituents there. It treats of the Foreign Policy of the country since the Revolution of 1688, and defends the Foreign Policy advocated by Mr. Cobden and himself.] The frequent and far too complimen tary manner in which, my name has been mentioned to-night, and the most kind way in which you have received me, have placed me in a position somewhat humiliating, and really painful; for to receive laudation which one feels one cannot possibly have merited, is much more painful than to be passed by in a distribution of commendation to which possibly one might lay some claim. If one-twentieth part of what has been said is trae, if I am entitled to any measure of your approbation, I may begin to think that my public career and my opinions are not so un-English and so anti-national as some of those who profess to be the best of our public instructors have sometimes assumed. How, indeed, can I, any more than any of you, be un-English and anti-national ? Was I not born upon the same soil? Do I not come of the same English stock? Are not my family committed irrevocably to the fortunes of this coun try? Is not whatever property I may have depending as much as yours is depending upon the good government of our common fatherland ? Then how shall any man dare to say to any one of his countrymen, because he happens to hold a different opinion on questions of great public policy, that therefore he is un-English, and is to be condemned as anti-national? There are those who would assume that between my coun trymen and me, and between my con stituents and me, there has been, and , there is now, a great gulf fixed, and '. that if I cannot pass over to them and to you, they and you can by no possi bility pass over to me. Now, I take the liberty here, in the presence of an audience as intelligent as can be collected within the limits of this island, and of those who have the strongest claims to know what opinions I do entertain relative to certain great questions of public policy, to assert that I hold no views, that I have never pro mulgated any views on those contro verted questions with respect to which I cannot bring as witnesses in my favour, and as fellow-believers with myself, some of the best and most revered names in the histoiy of English statesmanship. About 120 years ago, the Government of this country was directed by Sir Robert Walpole, a great Minister, who for a long period preserved the country OCT. 29, I858. FOREIGN POLICY. 467 in peace, and whose pride it was that during those years he had done so. Un fortunately, towards the close of his career, he was driven by faction into a policy which was the ruin of his political position. Sir Robert Walpole declared, when speaking of the question of war as affecting this country, that nothing could- be so foolish, nothing so mad as a policy of war for a trading nation. And he went so far as to say, that any peace was better than the most successful war. 1 do not give you the precise language made use of by the Minister, for I speak only from memory; but I am satisfied I am not misrepresenting him in what I have now stated. Come down fifty years nearer to our own time, and you find a statesman, not long in office, but stid strong in the affections of all persons of Liberal prin ciples in this countiy, and in his time representing fully the sentiments of the Liberal party — Charles James Fox. Mr. Fox, referring to the policy of the Government of his time, which was one of constant interference in the affairs of Europe, and by which the country was continually involved in the calamities of war, said that although he would not assert or maintain tile principle, that under no circumstances could England have any cause of interference with the affairs of the continent of Europe, yet he would prefer the policy of positive non-interference and of perfect isolation rather than the constant intermeddling to which our recent policy had subjected us, and which brought so much trouble and suffering upon the country. In this case also I am not prepared to give you his exact words, but I am sure that I fairly describe the sentiments which he expressed. Come down fifty years later, and to a time within the recollection of most of us, and you find another statesman, once the most popular man in England, and stid remembered in this town and else where with respect and affection. I allude to Earl Grey. When Earl Grey came into office for the purpose of carry ing the question of Parliamentary Re form, he unfurled the banner of ' Peace, retrenchment, and reform,' and that sentiment was received in every part of the United Kingdom, by every man who was or had been in favour of Liberal principles, as predicting the advent of a new era which should save his country from many of the calamities of the past. Come down still nearer, and to a time that seems but the other day, and you find another Minister, second to none of those whom I have mentioned — the late Sir Robert Peel. I had the opportunity of observing the conduct of Sir Robert Peel, from the time when he took office in 1 841 ; I watched his proceedings par ticularly from the year 1843, when I entered Parliament, up to the time of his lamented death ; and during the whole of that period, I venture to say, his principles, if they were to be dis covered from his conduct and his speeches, were precisely those which I have held, and which I have always endeavoured to press upon the atten tion of my countrymen. If you have any doubt upon that point I would refer you to that last, that beautiful, that most solemn speech, which he delivered with an earnestness and a sense of re sponsibility as if he had known he was leaving a legacy to his countiy. If you refer to that speech, delivered on the morning of the very day on which occurred the accident which terminated his life, you will find that its whole tenor is in conformity with ad the doctrines that I have urged upon my countrymen for years past with respect to our policy in foreign affairs. When Sir Robert Peel went home just before the dawn of day, upon the last occasion that he passed from the House of Com mons, the scene of so many of his triumphs, I have heard, from what I think a good authority, that after he entered his own house, he expressed the exceeding relief which he expe rienced at having delivered himself of a speech which he had been reluctantly obliged to make against a Ministry which he was anxious to support, and 30—2 468 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 29, he added, if I am not mistaken, ' I have made a speech of peace.' Well, if this be so, if I can give you four names like these, — if there were time I could make a longer list of still eminent, if inferior men, — I should like to know why I, as one of a small party, am to be set down as teaching some new doctrine which it is not fit for my countrymen to hear, and why I am to be assailed in every form of language, as if there was one great department of governmental affairs on which I was in competent to offer any opinion to my countrymen. But leaving the opinions of individuals, I appeal to this audience, to every man who knows anything of the views and policy of the Liberal party in past years, whether it is not the fact that up to 1832, and indeed to a much later period, probably to the year 1850, those sentiments of Sir Robert Walpole, of Mr. Fox, of Earl Grey, and of Sir Robert Peel, the sentiments which I in humbler mode have propounded, were not received unanimously by the Liberal party as their fixed and unchangeable creed? And why should they not ? Are they not , founded upon reason ? Do not all statesmen know, as you know, that upon peace, and peace alone, can be based the successful industry of a na tion, and that by successful industry alone can be created that wealth which, permeating all classes of the people, not confined to great proprietors, great merchants, and great speculators, not running in a stream merely down your principal streets, but turning fertilizing rivulets into every bye-lane and every alley, tends so ppwerfully to promote the comfort, happiness, and content ment of a nation ? Do you not know that all progress comes from successful and peaceful industry, and that upon it is based your superstructure of educa tion, of morals, of self-respect among your people, as well as every measure for extending and consolidating freedom in your public institutions? I am not afraid to acknowledge that I do op- ' pose — that I do utterly condemn and denounce — a great part of the foreign policy which is practised and adhered to by the Government of this country. You know, of course, that about 170 years ago there happened in this countiy what we have always been accustomed to call ' a Glorious Revolution' — a Re volution which had this effect: that it put a bit into the mouth of the monarch, so that he was not able of his own free will to do, and he dared no longer at tempt to do, the things which his pre decessors had done without fear. But if at the Revolution the monarchy of England was bridled and bitted, at the same time the great territorial families of England were enthroned; and from that period, until the year 1831 or 1832 — until the time when Birmingham politically became famous — those terri torial families reigned with an almost undisputed sway over the destinies and the industry of the people of these king doms. If you turn to the histoiy of England, from the period of the Revo lution to the present, you will find that an entirely new policy was adopted, and that while we had endeavoured in former times to keep ourselves free from Euro pean complications, we now began to act upon a system of constant entangle ment in the affairs of foreign countries, as if there was neither property nor honours, nor anything worth striving for, to be acquired in any other field. The language coined and used then, has continued to our day. Lord Somers, in writing for William III, speaks of the endless and sanguinary wars of that period as wars ' to maintain the liber ties of Europe.' There were wars ' to support the Protestant interest,' and there were many wars to preserve our old friend ' the balance of power.' We have been at war since that time, I believe, with, for, and against every considerable nation in Europe. We fought to put -down a pretended French supremacy under Louis XIV. We fought to prevent France and Spain coming under the sceptre of one monarch, al though, if we had not fought, it would have been impossible in (he course of i858. FOREIGN POLICY. 469 things that they should have become so- united. We fought to maintain the Italian provinces in connection with the House of Austria. We fought to put down the supremacy of Napoleon Bona parte ; and the Minister who was em ployed by this country at Vienna, after the great war, when it was determined that no Bonaparte should ever again sit on the throne of France, was the very man to make an alliance with another Bonaparte for the purpose of carrying on a war to prevent the supremacy of the late Emperor of Russia. So that we have been all round Europe, and across it over and over again, and after a policy so distinguished, so pre-eminent, so long-continued, and so costly, I think we have a fair right — I have, at least — to ask those who are in favour of it to show us its visible result. Europe is not at this moment, so far as I know, speaking of it broadly, and making allowance for certain improvements in its general civilisation, more free politi cally than it was before. The balance of power is like perpetual motion, or any of those impossible things which some men are always racking their brains and spending their time and money to accomplish. We all know and deplore that at the present moment a large number of the grown men of Europe are employed, and a large portion of the industry of Europe is absorbed, to provide for, and maintain, the enormous armaments which are now on foot in every con siderable Continental State. Assuming, then, that Europe is not much better in consequence of the sacrifices we have made, let us inquire what has been the result in England, because, after all, that is the question which it becomes us most to consider. I believe that I understate the sum when I say that, in pursuit of this Will-o'-the-wisp, (the liberties of Europe and the balance of power,) there has been extracted from the industry of the people of this small island no less an amount than 2,000,000,000/. sterling. I cannot ima gine how much 2,000,000,000/. is, and therefore I shall not attempt to make you comprehend it. I presume it is something like those vast and incom prehensible astronomical distances with which we have been lately made fa miliar; but, however familiar, we feel that we do not know one bit more about them than we did before. When I try to think of that sum of 2,000,000,000/., there is a sort of vision passes before my mind's eye. I see your peasant labourer delve and plough, sow and reap, sweat beneath the summer's sun, or grow prematurely old before the win ter's blast I see your noble mechanic, with his manly countenance and his matchless skill, toiling at his bench or his forge. I see one of the workers in our factories in the north, a woman — a girl, it may be — gentle and good, as many of them are, as your sisters and daughters are — I see her intent upon the spindle, whose revolutions are so rapid that the eye fails altogether to de tect them, or watching the alternating flight of the unresting shuttle. I turn again to another portion of your popu lation, which, 'plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made,' and I see the man who brings up from the secret chambers of the earth the elements of the riches and greatness of his countiy. When I see all this, I have before me a mass of produce and of wealth which I am no more able to comprehend than I am that 2,000,000,000/. of which I have spoken, but I behold in its full propor tions die hideous error of your Govern ments, whose fatal policy consumes in some cases a half, never less than a third, of all the results of that industry which God intended should fertilise and bless every home in England, but the fruits of which are squandered in every part of the surface of the globe, without producing the smallest good to the people of England. We have, it is true, some visible re sults that are of a more positive character. We have that which some people call a great advantage — the National Debt — a debt which is now so large that the most prudent, the most economical, and 47° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 29, the most honest have given up all hope, not of its being paid off, but of its being diminished in amount. We have, too, taxes which have been during many years so onerous that there have been times when the patient beasts of burden threatened to revolt — so onerous that it has been utterly impossible to levy them with any kind of honest equality, accord ing to the means of the people to pay them. We have that, moreover, which is a standing wonder to all foreigners who consider our condition — an amount of apparently immovable pauperism, which to strangers is wholly inecon- cileable with the fact that we, as a na tion, produce more of what should make us all comfortable, than is produced by any other nation of similar numbers on the face of the globe. Let us likewise remember that during the period of those great and so-called glorious con tests on the continent of Europe, every description of home reform was not only delayed, but actually crushed out of the minds of the great bulk ,of the people. There can be no doubt whatever that in 1793 England was about to realise politi cal changes and reforms, such as did not appear again until 1830; and during the period of that war, which now almost all men agree to have been wholly un necessary, we were passing through a period which may be described as the dark age of English politics ; when there was no more freedom to write or speak, or politically to act, than there is now in the most despotic country of Europe. But, it may be asked, did nobody gain ? If Europe is no better, and the people of England have been so much worse, who has benefited by the new system of foreign policy? What has been the fate of those who were en throned at the Revolution, and whose supremacy has been for so long a period undisputed among us? Mr. Kinglake, the author of an interesting book on Eastern Travel, describing the habits of some acquaintances that he made in the Syrian Deserts, says, that the jackals of the Desert follow their prey in families like the place-hunters of Europe. I will reverse, if you like, the comparison, and say that the great territorial families of England, which were enthroned at the Revolution, have followed their prey like the jackals of the Desert. Do you not observe at a glance, that, from the time of William III, by reason of the foreign policy which I denounce, wars have been multiplied, taxes increased, loans made, and the sums of money which every year the Government has to expend augmented, and that so the patronage at the disposal of Ministers must have increased also, and the families who were enthroned and made powerful in the legislation and adminis tration of the country must have had the first pull at, and the largest profit out of, that patronage? There is no actuary in existence who can calculate how much of the wealth, of the strength, of the supremacy of the territorial fami lies of England has been derived from an unholy participation in the fruits of die industry of the people, which have been wrested from them by every de vice of taxation, and squandered in every conceivable crime of which a Go vemment could possibly be guilty. The more you examine this matter the more you will come to the conclu sion which I have arrived at, that this foreign policy, this regard for ' the liberties of Europe,' this care at one time for ' the Protestant interests,' this excessive love for the 'balance of power,' is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of out-door relief for the aristo cracy of Great Britain. [Great laughter.] I observe that you receive that decla ration as if it were some new and im portant discovery. In 1815, when the great war with France was ended, every Liberal in England, whose politics, whose hopes, and whose faith had not been crashed out of him by the tyranny of the time of that war, was fully aware of this, and openly admitted it, and up to 1832, and for some years afterwards, it was the fixed and undoubted creed of the great Liberal party. But somehow all is changed. We who stand upon i858. FOREIGN POLICY. 47i the old landmarks, who walk in the old paths, who would conserve what is wise and prudent, are hustled and shoved about as if we were come to turn the world upside down. The change which has taken place seems to confirm the opinion of a lamented friend of mine, who, not having succeeded in all his hopes, thought that men made no progress whatever, but went round and round like a squirrel in a cage. The idea is now so general that it is our duty to meddle everywhere, that it really seems as if we had pushed the Tories from the field, expelling them by our competition. I should like to lay before you a list of the treaties which we have made, and of the responsibilities under which we have laid ourselves with respect to the various countries of Europe. I do not know where such an enumeration is to be found, but I suppose it would be possible for antiquaries and men of in vestigating minds to dig them out from the recesses of the Foreign Office, and perhaps to make some of them intel ligible to the countiy. I believe, how ever, that if we go to the Baltic we shall find that we have a treaty to de fend Sweden, and the only thing which Sweden agrees to do in return is not to give up any portion of her territories to Russia. Coming down a little south, we have a treaty which invites us, en ables us, and perhaps, if we acted fully up to our duty with regard to it, would compel us to interfere in the question between Denmark and the Duchies. If I mistake ndt, we have a treaty which binds us down to the maintenance of the little kingdom of Belgium, as es tablished after its separation from Hol land. We have numerous treaties with France. We are understood to be bound by treaty to maintain constitutional go vernment in Spain and Portugal. If we go round into the Meditenanean, we find the little kingdom of Sardinia, to which we have lent some millions of money, and with which we have entered into important treaties for preserving the balance of power in Europe. If we go beyond the kingdoms of Italy, and cross the Adriatic, we come to the small kingdom of Greece, against which we have a nice account that will never be settled ; while we have engagements to maintain that respectable but diminutive country under its present constitutional government. Then, leaving the king dom of Greece, we pass up the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and from Greece to the Red Sea, wherever the authority of the Sultan is more or less admitted, the blood and the industry of England are pledged to the permanent sustentation of the ' independence and integrity' of the Ottoman Empire. I confess that as a citizen of this country, wishing to live peaceably among my fellow-countrymen, and wishing to see my countrymen free, and able to enjoy the fruits of their labour, I pro test against a system which binds us in all these networks and complications, from which it is impossible that we can gain one single atom of advantage for this country. It is not all glory, after all. Glory may be worth something, but it is not always glory. We have had within the last few years despatches from Vienna and from St. Petersburg, which, if we had not deserved them, would have been very offensive and not a little insolent. We have had the Am bassador of the Queen expelled sum marily from Madrid, and we have had an Ambassador driven almost with ig nominy from Washington. We have blockaded Athens for a claim which was known to be false. We have quar relled with Naples, for we chose to give advice to Naples, which was not re ceived in the submissive spirit expected from her, and our Minister was there fore withdrawn. Not three years ago, too, we seized a considerable kingdom in India, with which our Govemment had but recently entered into the most solemn treaty, which every lawyer in England and in Europe, I believe, would consider binding before God and the world. We deposed its monarch ; we committed a great immorality and a great crime, and we have reaped an 472 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. almost instantaneous retribution in the most gigantic and sanguinary revolt which probably any nation ever made against its conquerors. Within the last few years we have had two wars with a great Empire, which we are told con tains at least one-third of the whole human race. The first war was called, and appropriately called, the Opium War. No man, I believe, with a spark of morality in his composition, no man who cares anything for the opinion of his fellow-countrymen, has dared to justify that war. The war which has just been concluded, if it has been con cluded, had its origin in the first war ; for the enormities committed in the first war are the foundation of the im placable hostility which it is said the inhabitants of Canton bear to all per sons connected with the English name. Yet, though we have these troubles in India — a vast country which we do not know how to govern — and a war with China — a country with which, though everybody else can remain at peace, we cannot — such is the inveterate habit of conquest, such is the insatiable lust of territory, such is, in my view, the de praved, unhappy state of opinion of the country on this subject, that there are not a few persons, Chambers of Com merce to wit, in different parts of the kingdom (though I am glad to say . it has not been so. with the Chamber of Commerce at Birmingham), who have been urging our Government to take possession of a province of the greatest island in the Eastern seas ; a possession which must at once necessitate increased estimates and increased taxation, and which would probably lead us into mer ciless and disgraceful wars with the half- savage tribes who inhabit that island. I will not dwell upon that question. . The gentleman who is principally con cerned in it is at this moment, as you know, stricken down with affliction, and I am unwilling to enter here into any considerable discussion of the case which he is urging upon the public; but I say that we have territory enough in India.; and if we have not troubles enough there, if we have not difficulties enough in China, if we have not taxa tion enough, by all means gratify your wishes for more ; but I hope that what ever may be the shortcomings of the Government with regard to any other questions in which we are all interested ¦ — and may they be few ! — they will shut their eyes, they will turn their backs obstinately from adding in this mode, or in any mode, to the English possessions in the East. I suppose that if any ingenious person were to prepare a large map of the world, as far as it is known, and were to mark upon it, in any colour that he liked, the spots where Englishmen have fought and English blood has been poured forth, and the treasure of England squandered, scarcely a countiy, scarcely a province of the vast expanse of the habitable globe would be thus undistinguished. Perhaps there are in this room, I am sure there are in the country, many per sons who hold a superstitious tradition ary belief that, somehow or other, our vast trade is to be attributed to what we have done in this way, that it is thus we have opened markets and advanced com merce, that English greatness depends, upon the extent of English conquests and English mditary renown. But I am inclined to think that, with the exception of Australia, there is not a single dependency of the Crown which, if we come to reckon what it has cost in war and protection, would not be found to be a positive loss to the peo ple of this country. Take the United States, with which we have such an enormous and constantly increasing trade. The wise statesmen of the last generation, men whom your school his tories tell you were statesmen, serving under a monarch who they tell you was a patriotic monarch, spent 130,000,000/. of the fruits of the industry of the peo ple in a vain — happily a vain — endeavour to retain the colonies of the United States in subjection to the Monarchy of England. Add up the interest 'of that 130,000,000/. for all this time, and how long do you think it will be before FOREIGN POLICY. 473 there will be a profit on the trade with the United States which will repay the enormous sum we invested in a war to retain those States as colonies of this Empire? It never will be paid off. Wherever you turn, you will find that the opening of markets, developing of new countries, introducing cotton cloth with cannon balls, are vain, foolish, and wretched excuses for wars, and ought not to be listened to for a moment by any man who understands the multipli cation table, or who can do the simplest sum in arithmetic. Since the ' Glorious Revolution,' since the enthronisation of the great Norman territorial families, they have spent in wars, and we have worked for, about 2,000,000,000/. The interest on that is 100,000,000/. per annum, which alone, to say nothing of the principal sum, is three or four times as much as the whole amount of your annual export trade from that time to this. Therefore, if war has provided you with a trade, it has been at an enormous cost; but I think it is by no means doubtful that your trade would have been no less in amount and no less profitable had peace and justice been inscribed on your flag instead of conquest and the love of military renown. But even in this year, 1858— we have got a long way into the century — we find that within the last seven years our public debt has greatly increased. Whatever be the increase of our population, of our machinery, of our industry, of our wealth, still our national debt goes on increasing. Although we have not a foot more territory to conserve, or an enemy in the world who dreams' of attacking us, we find that our annual military expenses during the last twenty years have risen from 12,000,000/. to 22,000,000/., Some people believe that it is a good thing to pay a great revenue to the State. Even so eminent a man as Lord John Russell is not without a delusion of this sort. Lord John Russell, as you have heard, while speaking of me in 'flattering and friendly terms, says he is unfortunately obliged to differ from me frequently; therefore, I suppose, there is no particular harm in my saying that I am sometimes obliged to differ from him. Some time ago he was a great star in the northern hemisphere, shin ing, not with unaccustomed, but with his usual brilliancy at Liverpool. He made a speech, in which there was a great deal to be admired, to a meeting composed, it was said, to a great extent of working-men ; and in it he stimulated them to a feeling of pride in the great ness of their country and in being citizens of a State which enjoyed a re venue of 100,000,000/. a-year, which included the revenues of the United Kingdom and of British India. But I think it would have been far more to the purpose if he could have congratu lated the working-men of Liverpool on this vast Empire being conducted in an orderly manner, on its laws being well administered and well obeyed, its shores sufficiently defended, its people pros perous and happy, on a revenue of 20,000,000/. The State indeed, of which Lord John Russell is a part, may enjoy a revenue of 100,000,000/., but I am afraid the working-men can only be said to enjoy it in the sense in which men not very choice in their expressions say that for a long time they have en joyed ' very bad health.' I am prepared to admit that it is a subject of congratulation that there is a people so great, so free, and so in dustrious, that it can produce a sufficient income out of which 100,000,000/. a-year, if need absolutely were, could be spared for some great and noble object ; but it is not a thing to be proud of that our Go vernment should require us to pay that enormous sum for the simple purposes of govemment and defence. Nothing can by any possibility tend more to the corruption of a Government than enor mous revenues. We have heard lately of instances of certain joint-stock in stitutions with very great capital col lapsing suddenly, bringing disgrace upon their managers, and rain upon hundreds of families. A great deal of that has 474 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 29, arisen, not so much from intentional fraud, as from the fact that weak and incapable men have found themselves tumbling about in an ocean of bank notes and gold, and they appear to have lost all sight of where it came from, to whom it belonged, and whether it was possible by any maladministration ever to come to an end of it. That is abso lutely what is done by Governments. You have read in the papers lately some accounts of the proceedings before a Commission appointed to inquire into alleged maladministration with reference to the supply of clothing to the army, but if anybody had said anything in the time of the late Government about any such maladministration, there is not one of those great statesmen, of whom we are told we ought -always to speak with so much reverence, who would not have got up and declared that nothing could -be more admirable than the sys tem of book-keeping at Weedon, nothing more economical than the manner in which the War Department spent the money provided by public taxation. But we know that it is not so. I have heard a gentleman — one who is as competent as any man in England to give an opinion about it — a, man of business, and not surpassed by any one as a man of business, declare, after a long ex amination of the details of the question, that he would undertake to do every thing that is done not only for the defence of the country, but for many other things which are done by your navy, and which are not necessary for that purpose, for half the annual cost that is voted in the estimates 1 I think the expenditure of these vast sums, and especially of those which we spend for military purposes, leads us to adopt a defiant and insolent tone to wards foreign countries. We have the freest press in Europe, and the freest platform in Europe, but every man who writes an article in a newspaper, and every man who stands on a platform, - ought to do it under a solemn sense of responsibility. Every word he writes, every word I utter, passes with a rapidity, of which our forefathers were utterly ignorant, to the very ends of the earth ; the words become things and acts, and they produce on the minds of other nations effects which a man may never have intended. Take .a recent case ; take the case of France. I am not expected to defend, and I shall cer tainly not attack, the present Govern ment of France. The instant that it ap'peared in its present shape, the Min ister of England conducting your foreign affairs, speaking ostensibly for the Cabinet, for his Sovereign, and for the English nation, offered his congratula tions, and the support of England was at once accorded to the re-created French Empire. Soon after this an intimate alliance was entered into be tween the Queen of England, through her Ministers, and the Emperor of the French. I am not about to defend the policy which flowed from that alliance, nor shall I .take up your time by mak ing. any attack upon it. An alliance was entered into, and a war was entered into. English and French soldiers. fought on the same field, and they suffered, I fear, from the same neglect. They now lie buried on the bleak heights of the Crimea, and except by their mothers, who do not soon forget their children, I suppose they are mostly forgotten. I have never heard it sug gested that the French Government did not behave with the most perfect honour to this Govemment and this country all through these grave transactions ; but I have heard it stated by those who must know, that nothing could be more honourable, nothing more just, than the' conduct of the French Emperor to this Government throughout the whole of that straggle. More recently, when the war in China was begun by a Go vernment which I have condemned and denounced in the House of Commons, the Emperor of the French sent his ships and troops to co-operate with us, but I never heard that anything was done there to create a suspicion of a feeling of hostility on his part towards us. The Emperor of the French came FOREIGN POLICY. 475 to London, and some of those powerful organs of the press who have since taken the line of which I am complain ing, did all but invite the people of London to prostrate themselves under the wheels of the chariot which con veyed along our streets the revived monarchy of France. The Queen of England went to Paris, and was she not received there with as much affection and as much respect as her high po sition and her honourable character entitled her to ? What has occurred since ? If there was a momentary unpleasantness, I am quite sure that every impartial man will agree that, under the peculiarly irritat ing circumstances of the time, there was at least as much forbearance shown on one side of the Channel as on the other. Then we have had much said lately about a naval fortification recently com pleted in France, which has been more than one hundred years in progress, which was not devised by the present Emperor of the French. For one hun dred years great sums had been spent on it, and at last, like every other great work, it was brought to an end. The English Queen and others were invited over, and many went who were not in vited. And yet in all this we are told that there is something to create extreme alarm and suspicion ; we, who have never fortified any places; we, who have not a greater than Sebastopol at Gibraltar; we, who have not an im pregnable fortress at Malta, who have not spent the fortune of a nation almost in the Ionian Islands ; we, who are doing nothing at Aldemey ; we are to take offence at the fortifications of Cherbourg! There are few persons who at some time or other have not been brought into contact with a poor unhappy fellow-creature who has some peculiar delusion or suspicion pressing on his mind. I recollect a friend of mine going down from Derby to Leeds in the train with a very quiet and re spectable-looking gentleman sitting op posite to him. They had both been staying at the Midland Hotel, and they began talking about it. All at once the gentleman said, ' Did you notice anything particular about the bread at breakfast?' 'No,' said my friend, 'I did not.' ' Oh 1 but I did,' said the poor gentleman, ' and I am convinced there was an attempt made to poison me, and it is a very curious thing that I never go to an hotel without I dis cover some attempt to do me mischief.' The unfortunate man was labouring under one of the greatest calamities which can befall a human creature. But what are we to say of a nation which lives under a perpetual delusion that it is about to be attacked — a nation which is the most combined on the face of the earth, with little less than 30,000,000 of people all united under a Govern ment which, though we intend to reform it, we do not the less respect it, and which has mechanical power and wealth to which no other country offers any parallel? There is no causeway to Britain ; the free waves of the sea flow day and night for ever round her shores, and yet there are people going about with whom this hallucination is so strong that they do not merely discover it quietly to their friends, but they write it down in double-leaded columns, in leading articles, — nay, some of them actually get up on platforms and pro claim it to hundreds .and thousands of their fellow-countrymen. I should like to ask you whether these delusions are to last for ever, whether this policy is to be the perpetual policy of England, whether these results are to go on gathering and gathering until there come, as come there must inevitably, some dreadful catastrophe on .our country? I should like to-night, if I could, to inaugurate one of the best and holiest revolutions that ever took place in this country. We have had a dozen revo lutions since some of us were chil dren. We have had one revolution in which you had a great share, a great revolution of opinion on the question of the suffrage. Does it not read like. madness that men, thirty years ago, were frantic at the idea of the people of 476 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 29, Birmingham having a 10/. franchise ? Does it not seem something like idiotcy to be told that a banker in Leeds, when it was proposed to transfer the seats of one rotten borough to the town of Leeds, should say (and it was repeated in the House of Commons on his autho rity) that if the people of Leeds had the franchise conferred upon them it would not be possible to keep the bank doors open with safety, and that he should remove his business to some quiet place out of danger from the savage race that peopled that town ? But now all con fess that the people are perfectly com petent to have votes, and nobody dreams of arguing that the privilege wid make them less orderly. Take the question of colonial govern ment. Twenty years ago the govern ment of our colonies was a huge job. A small family party in each, in con nection with the Colonial Office, ruled our colonies. We had then discontent, and, now and then, a little wholesome insurrection, especially in Canada. The result was that we have given up the colonial policy which had hitherto been held sacred, and since that time not only have our colonies greatly advanced in wealth and material resources, but no parts of the Empire are more tranquil and loyal. Take also the question of Protection. Not thirty years ago, but twelve years ago, there was a great party in Parlia ment, led by a Duke in one House, and by the son and brother of a Duke in the other, which declared that utter ruin must come, not only on the agri cultural interest, but upon the manu factures and commerce of England, if we departed from our old theories upon this subject of Protection. They told us that the labourer- — the unhappy labourer — of whom it may be said in this countiy, — ' Here landless labourers hopeless toil and strive, But taste no portion of the sweets they hive,' — that the labourer was to be ruined ; that is, that the paupers were to be pauperised. These gentlemen were overthrown. The plain, honest, com mon sense of the country swept away their cobweb theories, and they are gone. What is the result? From 1846 to 1857 we have received into this country of grain of all kinds, including flour, maize, or Indian corn — all objects heretofore not of absolute prohibition, but which were intended to be pro-, hibited until it was not safe for people to be starved any more — not less than an amount equal in value to 224,000,000/. That is equal to 18,700,000/. per annum on the average of twelve years. During that period, too, your home growth has been stimulated to an enormous extent. You have imported annually 200,000 tons of guano, and the result has been a prorjortionate increase in the produc tions of the soil, for 200,000 tons of guano will grow an equal weight and value of wheat. With all this, agricul ture was never more prosperous, while manufactures were never, at the same time, more extensively exported ; and with all this the labourers, for whom the tears of the Protectionist were shed, have, according to the admission of the most violent of the class, never been in a better state since the beginning of the great French war. One other: revolution of opinion has been in regard to our criminal law. I have lately been reading a book which I would advise every man to read — the Lfe of Sir Samuel Romilly. He tells us in simple language of the almost in superable difficulties he had to contend with to persuade the Legislature of tins country to abolish the punishment of death for stealing from a dwelling- house to the value of 5s., an offence which now is punished by a few weeks' imprisonment. Lords, bishops, and statesmen opposed these efforts year after year, and there have been some thousands of persons put to death pub licly for offences which are not now punishable with death. Now, every man and woman in the kingdom would feel a thrill of horror if told that a FOREIGN POLICY. 477 fellow-creature was to be put to death for such a cause. These are revolutions in opinion ; and let me tell you that when you accom plish a revolution in opinion upon a great question, when you alter it from bad to good, it is not like charitably giving a beggar 6d. and seeing him no more, but it is a great beneficent act, which affects not merely the rich and the powerful, but penetrates every lane, every cottage in the land, and wherever it goes brings blessings and happiness. It is not from statesmen that these things come. It is not from them that have proceeded these great revolutions of opinion on the questions of Reform, Protection, Colonial Government, and Criminal Law — it was from public meetings such as this, from the intelli gence and conscience of the great body of the people who have no interest in wrong, and who never go from the right but by temporary enor and under momentary passion. It is for you to decide whether our greatness shall be only temporary or whether it shall be enduring. When I am told that the greatness of our country is shown by the 100,000,000/. of revenue produced, may I not also ask how it is that we have 1,100,000 paupers in this kingdom, and why it is that 7>ooo,oooZ. should be taken from the industry chiefly of the labouring classes to support a small nation, as it were, of paupers? Since your legis lation upon the Com-laws you have not only had nearly 20,000,000/. of food brought into the country annually, but such an extraordinary increase of trade that your exports are about doubled, and yet I understand that in the year 1856, for I have no later return, there were no less than 1 ,100,000 paupers in the United Kingdom, and the sum raised in poor-rates was not less than 7,200,000/. And that cost of pauperism is not the full amount; for there is a vast amount of temporary, casual, and vagrant pauperism that does not come in to swell that sum. Then do not you well know — I know it, because I live among the population of Lancashire, and I doubt not the same may be said of the population of this city and county — that just above the level of the 1,100,000 there is at least an equal number who are ever oscillating between independence and pauperism, who, with a heroism which is not the less heroic because it is secret and un recorded, are doing their very utmost to maintain an honourable and independent position before their fellow-men ? While Irish labour, notwithstanding the im provement which has taken place in Ireland, is only paid at the rate of about is. a-day ; while in the straths and glens of Scotland there are hundreds of shepherd families whose whole food almost consists of oatmeal porridge from day to day, and from week to week; while these things continue, I say that we have no reason to be self- satisfied and contented with our posi tion ; but that we who are in Parliament and are more directly responsible for affairs, and you who are also responsible, though in a lower degree, are bound by the sacred duty which we owe our country to examine why it is that with all this trade, all this industry, and all this personal freedom, there is still so much that is unsound at the base of our social fabric ? Let me direct your attention now to another point, which I never think of without feelings which words would altogether fail to express. You hear constantly, that woman, the helpmate of man, who adorns, dignifies, and blesses our lives, that woman in this countiy is cheap ; that vast numbers whose names ought to be synonyms for purity and virtue are plunged into profligacy and infamy. But do you not know that you sent 40,000 men to perish on the bleak heights of the Crimea, and that the revolt in India, caused, in part at least, by the grievous iniquity of the seizure of Oude, may tax your country to the extent of 100,000 lives before it is extinguished ; and do you not know that for the 140,000 men thus draughted off and consigned to premature graves, 478 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. OCT. 29, nature provided in your country 140,000 women ? If you have taken the men who should have been the husbands of these women, and if you have sacrificed 100,000,000/., which as capital reserved in the country would have been an ample fund for their employment and for the sustentation of their families, are you not guilty of a great sin in in volving yourselves in such a loss of life and of money in war, except on grounds and under circumstances which, accord ing to the opinions of every man in the countiy, should leave no kind of option whatever, for your choice ? I know perfectly well the kind of observations which a certain class of critics will make upon this speech. I have been already told by a very emi nent newspaper publisher in Calcutta, who, commenting on a speech I made at the close of the session with, regard to the condition of India and our future policy in that countiy, said, that the policy I recommended was intended to strike at the root of the advancement of the British Empire, and that its advance ment did not necessarily involve the calamities which I pointed out as likely to occur. My Calcutta critic assured me that Rome pursued a similar policy for a period of eight centuries, and that for those eight centuries she remained great. Now, I do not think that ex amples taken from pagan, sanguinary Rome, are proper - models for the imi tation of a Christian country, nor would I limit my hopes of the greatness of England even to the long duration of 800 years. But what is Rome now? The great city is dead. A poet has described her as ' the lone mother of dead empires.' Her language even is dead. Her very tombs are empty ; the ashes of her most illustrious citizens are dispersed — ' The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now.' Yet I am asked, I, who am one of the legislators of a Christian countiy, to measure my policy by the policy of ancient and pagan Rome ! I believe there is no permanent great ness to a nation except it be based upon morality. I do not care for military greatness or military renown. I care for the condition of the people among whom I live. There is no man in Eng land who is less likely to speak irreve rently of the Crown and Monarchy of England than I am ; but crowns, coro nets, mitres, military display, the pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge em pire, are, in my view, all trifles light as air, and not worth considering, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mansions, do not make a nation. The nation in every countiy dwells in the cottage ; and unless the light of your Constitution can shine there, unless the beauty of your legislation and the excellence of your statesmanship are impressed there on the feelings and condition of' the people, rely upon it you have yet to learn the duties of government. I have not, as you have observed, pleaded that this country should remain without adequate and scientific means of defence. I acknowledge it to be the duty of your statesmen, acting upon the known opinions and principles of ninety- nine out of every hundred persons in the countiy, at ad times, with all pos sible moderation, but with all possible efficiency, to take steps which shall preserve order within and on the con fines of your kingdom. But I shall repudiate and denounce the expenditure of every shilling, the engagement of every man, the employment of every ship winch has no object but inter meddling in the affairs of other coun tries, and endeavouring to extend the boundaries of an Empire which is al ready large enough to satisfy the greatest ambition, and I fear is much too large for the highest statesmanship to which any man has yet attained. The most ancient of profane histo rians has told us that the Scythians of his time were a veiy warlike people, and that they elevated an old cimeter 185S. FOREIGN POLICY. 479 upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To this cimeter they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main wealth of the countiy, and more costly sacrifices than to all. the rest of their gods. I often ask myself whether we are at all ad vanced in one respect beyond those Scythians. What are our contributions to charity, to education, to morality, to religion, to justice, and to civil govem ment, when compared with the wealth we expend in sacrifices to the old cimeter ? Two nights ago I addressed in this had a vast assembly composed to a great extent of your countrymen who have no political power, who are at work from the dawn of the day to the evening, and who have therefore limited means of informing themselves on these great subjects. Now I am privileged to speak to a somewhat different audience. You represent those of your great community who have a more- complete education, who have on some points greater intelligence, and in whose hands reside the power and in fluence of the district. I am speaking, too, within the hearing of those whose gentle nature, whose finer instincts, whose purer minds, have not suffered as some of us have suffered in the turmoil and strife of life. You can mould opinion, you can create political power, ¦ — you cannot think a good thought on this subject and communicate it to your neighbours, — you cannot make these points topics of discussion in your social circles and more general meetings, with out affecting sensibly and speedily the course which the Government of your country will pursue. May I ask you, then, to believe, as I do most devoutly betieve, that the moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations, and for nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is » penalty which will in evitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our lifetime ; but, rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says, — ' The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite, Nor yet doth linger.' We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. We know what the past has cost us, we know how much and how far we have wan dered, but we are not left without a guide. It is true we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim — those oraculous gems on Aaron's breast — from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people. -Si:-:fS - FINANCIAL POLICY. THE FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE LATE GOVERNMENT. HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULY 21, 1859. From Hansard. [Mr. Disraeli took occasion to give an elaborate defence of the financial policy of the late Government, and to criticise the position which the income-tax assumed in the scheme of the existing Administration. He recommended that the additional income- tax, instead of being collected in six months, should be extended over a year. But he assumed that the public expenditure of the country could not be diminished. It was to this point especially that Mr. Bright directed himself. When the report of this speech arrived in Paris, it attracted the attention of M. Chevalier, the distinguished French Economist. He wrote at once to Mr. Cobden, expressing his belief that a Commercial Treaty between England and France might be negotiated, and urged him to come to Paris during the autumn to make the attempt. Mr. Cobden went to Paris during the autumn, having received the sanction of the leading Members of the Government, and sought an interview with the Emperor of the French. Negotiations were at once entered into, and the Treaty of Commerce with France was the result. This was the crowning labour of the public life of Mr. Cobden, and with it his name and fame will be for ever associated.] I am not sorry that I had the oppor tunity of hearing the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer before I was permitted to address the House. I am sure the House will understand me when I say that I have listened to large portions of his speech, and of that of his predecessor in office, with great satisfaction. As far as the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) is concerned, I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mr. Cobden), myself, and others who have generally acted with us, may consider him a con vert to the views which we have very often expressed in this House. I recol lect that Sir Robert Peel on one occasion made a speech of very much the same tenor, and hon. Gentleman opposite charged him with being a convert to our views. I believe that any man of intellect and genius who may lead that party to which the right hon. Gentleman belongs, and none other can lead it with any success, will, as time rolls on, more and more adopt those principles of political economy and of foreign policy which we have felt it our duty to propound to the House and the country. The speech of the right hon. Gentle man the Member for Bucks (and in JULY 21, I859. FINANCIAL POLICY. fact, also that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer), was a speech upon two subjects, the first part being devoted to finance, and the second to the question of foreign policy ; and perhaps the House will allow me to make a few observations in the same order. The budget of the Chancellor of the Ex chequer has, I think, met with general satisfaction — at least with as much satisfaction as generally falls to the lot of unpleasant propositions of this nature; but I may say for myself that whatever approbation of it I have to express arises from the fact that it is a propo sition confined to a single year, and that the right hon. Gentleman himself has suggested to the House that next year it will be necessary to take a general and more comprehensive review of the whole question of our finances and taxation. I shall, if the House will permit me, state one or two reasons why I feel particular satisfaction at the tempo rary nature of the plan which the right hon. Gentleman has proposed. I believe that, notwithstanding all that Chancellors of the Exchequer may say with regard to the advantages of the income-tax, it is as hateful as ever it has been to the people, and I believe it to be hateful chiefly because it is unjust. I" shall not now enter into the question which has been so often de bated, whether the tax ought to con tinue to be levied at the same rate upon fixed and precarious incomes, because I think that, whatever we may say, every one feels that there is a fixed injustice and a fixed wrong which it is utterly impossible that you should ever work out of the minds of the people of this country by whom the tax is paid. Just before coming into the House I had in the lobby an interview with some gendemen who have come up to town to protest against the continuance of this injustice. I made this answer to their re presentations : 'I agree with you entirely. I think the tax odious beyond all others that I know of, and odious beyond all others because it is unjust beyond all others ; and I will never consent that in its present shape it should be made a permanent tax. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes it for one year, under an emergency which some people suppose to have arisen. Therefore, I am obliged to consent to it this year ; but if I am here next year, and any pro position is made for its continuance in its present shape, it shall receive no countenance from me.' But there is another ground on which I should have to object to this tax, and at which I will now only just hint. It is not a pleasant view of the case for hon. Gentlemen opposite or for those whom they chiefly represent. When the time comes I am prepared to show that the income-tax presses upon all capital employed in shops or manufactures with double the weight that it does upon that which is employed strictly in the cultivation of the land. I am sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite will see the injustice in one particular — namely, that fanners in England, if I am not mis taken, pay on a rate of income calcu lated upon half their rent, while farmers in Scotland pay only upon an income calculated upon one-third of their rent. I know no reason for differences of that kind. I do not think they should exist. You may tolerate them for a single year — we can tolerate a great deal, if we think it necessary to maintain the honour or interests of the country, or even for the convenience of Parliament at times — but you cannot tolerate them as representing the permanent settle ment of a question in taxation. There is another ground upon which I should wholly object to the course which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is taking if he was making his arrange ments for more than a year, and in adverting to this I must call his atten tion to measures of great importance, which were much boasted of at the time, and to which he prevailed upon Parliament to assent in the year 1853. I hold that, whatever be our taxes — let us have 50,000,000/., or 70,000,000/., or 100,000,000/. a-year — and I know not 31 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 21, but we may live to see taxation grow up to 100,000,000/. a-year as heed lessly as we have seen it grow up to 70,000,000/. — whatever be the amount of our taxes, let us endeavour to do honestly by our countrymen ; not press ing the poor, whether our taxes be heavy or light in the main ; laying them on with a stronger and more resolute hand upon property, but in dealing with property, dealing just as honestly with its owners as we should deal with the poorest subjects of the realm. I take the taxes on successions of every kind — probate-duty, legacy- duty, and the tax levied under the Act of 1853 — to be strictly in their nature property taxes. They are taxes which are collected or intended to be collected as part of every man's possessions and property which change hands on the death of their owner. Those who are poor — those whose means are nothing — of whom there are unfortunately many in this country — who make no wills, for whom no one takes out letters of ad ministration, who have nothing to leave as a fortune or a little property to their children, are not directly interested in this matter; but all other classes of society are directly interested in it ; and I say that, whether a man be employed in manufactures, or have pro perty in land, in the Funds, or in Stocks and shares of any kind, he has a fair right to appeal to* this House that in the imposition of taxes of this nature there should be the most just regard that is possible for the interests of all those whom the law is intended to affect. I shall tell the House in a few words of what I complain, and what I shall move next year before anything be done to re-impose the income-tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his budget speech of 1853, where he intro duced that not very welcome guest to hon. Members opposite, the succession- tax, adverted to the probate-duty, which he said ought fairly to be levied upon all kinds of property, and not confined to one description alone. The hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. W.Williams) has brought that duty repeatedly be fore the House, and has shown that 40,000,000/. or 50,000,000/., if not more, have been paid into the Exchequer by taxes upon probates and legacies, all of which has been collected by taxes on personal property, but from which real and freehold property has been entirely exempted. I do not believe that any hon. Gentleman on the opposite side of the House feels that there ought to be this gross inequality. The probate-duty in 1858 raised to the Exchequer a sum of 1,338,000/., and next session I shall ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer why it is not extended, as it ought to be, to all property which passes by death from one owner to another. It was curious to observe that the right hon. Gentleman in his speech the other night — it was not quite so long as one he made before, but it was none the worse for that — did not refer to what was said to be the greatest effort of his financial genius. In 1853 everybody said there never was such a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He per suaded the countiy gentlemen to pass a Bill which inflicted upon' them, as they allege, the very same succession- duty as the law imposed upon personal property. : What did the right hon. Gentleman say upon tiiat occasion? He calculated that in the following year, 1854, the succession-tax would produce 500,000/. to the Exchequer ; in 1855 an additional 700,000/.; in 1856 an additional 400,009/.; and in 1857 an additional 400,000/. It will thus be seen that he anticipated the annual produce of this tax to amount in 1857 to 2,000,000/. If his calculation had turned out to be correct, the succession- duty would have yielded up to the present time no less a sum than 9,300,000/. What has been the actual result ? I cannot give the exact figures, because the Board of Inland Revenue say they cannot separate that which has been received from the succession- tax of 1853 from that which has been received from the old legacy-duty. But, adopting the mode which was pursued i8-59- FINANCIAL POLICY. 4?3 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night, I can inform the House that the legacy-duty in 1852, before the succession-tax came into existence, pro duced 1,380,000/., whereas the legacy and succession duties combined yielded in 1859 the sum of 2,211,000/., being an increase of 831,000/. From that sum, however, I must deduct the increase of the ancient legacy-duty in the interval between 1853 and 1859, and I ought also to deduct something, but unfor tunately I have no means of ascertaining what, for that description of property which the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1853 called rateable property, and which he withdrew from the legacy- duty, and put' under the succession-tax at a much smaller amount. Passing that by, however, and deducting only 50,000/. for the increase of the old legacy-duty, I find that the succession- tax, from which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected two years ago to receive 2.000,000/. a-year, brought in last year no more than 781,000/. How came the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he that understands his business so well, to make so grievous a mistake as this? I shall tell the House how it was. It is an odd thing that he could make such a mistake, but it is still more odd how any one could be taken in by such a mistake when made. The tax was not what it pre tended to be ; it was not a succession- tax upon the value of property passing from one person to another, but some thing very different ; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while he undertook to adjust a great inequality, established another just as great and as offensive. I do not blame him for what he did ; perhaps it was all he could do at the time; but surely he was deficient in acuteness when he supposed that his new tax would in 1857 produce 2,000,000/., whereas in 1859 it yielded only 781,000/. How the tax has been so unproductive is easily explained. If a man dies and leaves 10,000/., which is in the Funds, or in the North western Railway, or in ships, or in machinery, or employed in trade — what is done in reference to that 10,000/. ? I will take the case of the 10 per cent. duty — that is where there is no kin dred; 10,000/. left by one man to another, where there is no relationship, would have to pay a tax of 1000/. to the Exchequer. But. supposing the 10,000/. were invested in land, or in that rateable property which is the new distinction that the right hon. Gentle man establishes, what would be the result? Take two men, one twenty-two and the other eighty years of age. You would find that the Inland Revenue Board would turn to a table, which would say the man of eighty has a life worth three or four years only, and the man of twenty-two has a life worth twenty or twenty-five years ; and they would then take the income from the 10,000/. and multiply it by the number of years supposed to remain to the young man and to the old man, and thus come to the sum on which each would have to pay. I was fortunate enough to have a small property left to me by a person of whom I had no knowledge. I never saw him. He was an old gentleman, a great friend of peace, and opposed to the Russian war, and seeing that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and myself were very strenuous in our opposition to that war, he did what was in his power to mark his opinion of the course we had taken. I sold the pro perty for 1400/. or 1500/.; and when I came to pay my legacy-duty — that is, the succession-tax — I was greatly aston ished at the small sum I had to pay. My age was taken ; an estimate of the annual value of the property was made ; and I was told that I had to pay some thing like 40/. or 50/. If the property had been in the Funds, or invested in any other of the modes to which I have referred, I should have had to pay 140/. at least. Take the case of an hon. Gentleman on this side of the House who has been more fortunate than my self. A property worth 32,000/. was left to him by a person who was not 31- 484 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 21, a blood relation. If it had been in the Funds, or in ships, or in railways, or employed in trade, the succession-duty would have amounted to 3,200/. What did he pay ? He is not an old man — younger probably than the average of Members in this House — and yet, upon the property being valued and a calcu lation made of the number of years he might live, he found that he had to pay, not 3,200/., but 700/. Is it consistent with fairness — with our personal honour — for, after all, that is a quality which enters into these questions — with our duty to the public, that we, sitting here as a representative body, should take one class of property, the most solid and durable, attracting to it the largest social and political advantages, having in it the greatest certainty of accumu lation and improvement from the general improvement in the condition of the people, and charge it to the extent of 700/., while at the same time we impose 3,200/. upon another class of property not more valuable and far more fleeting in its character ? I think the reason why I should ob- j'ect to a permanent re-imposition of the income-tax will now be obvious to the House. I should object to it with all the force I am capable of until the taxes which now exist are put on a satisfac tory and honest footing, so that every man and every description of property may be called upon by the State in its just proportion to support the burdens and the necessities of the State. I do not intend beyond this to refer to the proposition which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made. I have only now referred to it that I may lay the ground for the course which I shall take in another session of Parliament, if this question comes before the House again ; and I believe that this course will be sanctioned by a large number of Mem bers here, and will meet with almost unanimous approval from all the honest men who are taxpayers in the kingdom. But this question of the mode of levy ing taxes is apart from a very serious question referred to by the right hon. Gentleman — that of our growing and frightful expenditure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, and very justly, that up to 1853, in the great depart ments of the expenditure, there had been no great increase for many years. I confess that, although I have been pro testing session after session against this growing expenditure, I was not fully aware of the enormous increase which has taken place until I compared the present year with 1853 and some pre ceding years. I find that in 1853, on the estimate of the right hon. Gentleman, the expenditure was only 50,782,000/., while the expenditure in the current year is 69,207,000/. The House must bear in mind that this is somewhat of an unfair picture, because since i853-there has been a sum of money charged to the expenditure which formerly went in the collection of the revenue. Mak ing every allowance, however, for the 4,740,000/. which is disposed of in this way, the expenditure has positively in creased in the interval by 13,685,000/. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli) was not, I think, quite correct in his statement respecting the Miscellaneous Estimates ; but there can be no doubt that the great and serious item in our outgoings is that of arma ments, for I find that the military and naval expenditure of the country has risen from 17,000,000/. in 1853 to up wards of 26,000,000/. in i860. Now, I should like to ask the House two or three quiet, serious questions, on this matter. The hon. Member sitting here just now (Sir Charles Napier) who commanded the Baltic fleet, and who re presents the borough of Southwark, has left his place, and I am very sorry for it, because I should have liked to ask him two or three questions. Does the House believe that we are now more or less safe from a foreign war, and particularly from an invasion of this countiy, than we were in 1S53 ? We have men — the right hon. Gentleman has referred to them — who are afflicted with a periodical panic. There is no complaint, I believe, so incurable as that. One fit begets an- I859. FINANCIAL POLICY. 4S5 other, and every fit seems so to enfeeble the constitution of the patient that each succeeding attack becomes more alarm ing than the last. We have two or three newspapers in this city, which appear to suffer in this way. One, which is supposed to represent a parti cular trading interest, pours forth from day to day, from week to week, from month to month — I know not at whose instigation, Iknownotif at the instigation of any man save the editor — the most foolish but the most bitter invectives against the French Government, and by that means against the French nation. I say against the French nation, because I hold that, no matter whether we approve the Government now existing in France or not, if we had such a Government, and some foreign nation through its press were constantly insult ing that Government, we should take not a small portion of those insults to ourselves, and we should become pro portionately irritated against that nation. Take another paper, the Times, which, unfortunately and untruly, is believed on the Continent to represent the opi nions of the English people. Who is there on that paper — let him stand for ward if there be such a man — who has a bitter personal animosity against the Emperor of the French? Day after day, every form into which the English language can be pressed is made use of for the purpose of Stirling up the bitterest animosity between two of the greatest nations on the face of the earth. Have these men published letters from Italy in vain? Have they told us of acres of bloody and mangled human bodies over which guns have been dragged and cavalry have galloped — have they told us of such scenes until a shudder has passed, I may almost say, through universal human nature — and yet have they learnt for one single moment to restrain that animosity which, if it continues many months longer, will place it beyond the power of this or any Government to prevent our being embroiled in a war with France ? And it is not only the Member for Southwark and such as he, it is not only the editors of newspapers, who suffer from and create these panics ; but go into another and what is generally sup posed to be a higher place, and what do you find there? Why, you hear some aged Peer turning back as it were to the con victions and the facts of his early youth, and delivering speeches which might have been somewhat in character with the barbarism of sixty years, ago, but which are very unfit for our time and for our opinions. We find another Peer [' Order l'J — another Gentleman, then, making a speech. I believe I am transgressing by the mention of certain things which are too sacred for allusion here; but really I do not wish to go into detail and point to particular per sons in connection with this matter. What I say is, that throughout Europe every intelligent man who reads speeches of that character, whether made in this House or in another place, can only arrive at one conclusion, thoroughly false as I believe in my conscience it would be — namely, that these jiersons represent a very large amount of public opinion in this country, and that we have forgotten the disasters and the rain entailed by the great Revolutionary War of -which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has spoken, and are ready to engage in another conflict of equal du ration and equal cost in blood and trea sure, with a result as utterly bootless to England and to Europe. Look at our position with regard to France at this moment. One of our wars is just over. I do not know that I use the exact words of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but I agree with him that there can be no peace in Italy between those two great Powers which can compare for evil with the war which ¦ that peace has terminated. When I read of peace being concluded, I felt as if I could breathe more freely since the species to which I belong is no longer engaged in the fiend-like destruction of its fellow-creatures. What do we now find in the Manifesto of the Emperor of the French just received in this country? SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 21, He said he discovered — I am not now using his exact words — that he was making war against the mind of Europe. That is a most important and valuable admission, and I only wish the Emperor had found this out three or six months ago. He says, further, that the war was assuming dimensions with which the interests which France had in the struggle were not commensurate. I am surprised that a man reputed to be so acute did not perceive that he would be exposed to this great danger before he entered upon the war. But the two ad missions made in this remarkable and memorable address prove to me that the suspicions which have been so studiously raised in this country as to the future objects of the Emperor of the French are altogether unfounded. I do not believe it possible for either the Emperor of the French or the Emperor of Austria to have returned home with all those scenes of horror, such as we have read of, flitting before their eyes, and I hope before their consciences, and to be now prepared to enter into another straggle — least of all a struggle with a nation like ours, containing 30,000,000 of united people, the most powerful, the richest, and, all things considered, per haps the best satisfied with their Govern ment of any nation in Europe. Besides this, have they not learnt some thing from the improvements effected in weapons of warfare, and the increased destructiveness of life of which those weapons are now capable? They see now how costly war is in money, how destructive in human life. Success in war no longer depends on those cir cumstances that formerly decided it. Soldiers used to look down on trade, and machine-making was, with them, a despised craft. No stars or garters, no ribbons or baubles bedecked the makers and workers of machinery. But what is war becoming now ? It depends, not as heretofore, on individual bravery, on the power of a man's nerves, the keenness of his eye, the strength of his body, or the power of his soul, if one may so speak ; but it is a mere mecha nical mode of slaughtering your fellow- men. This sort of thing cannot last. It will break down by its own weight. Its costliness, its destructiveness, its sa vagery will break it down ; and it re mains but for some Government — I pray that it maybe ours! — to set the great example to Europe of proposing a mu tual reduction of armaments. Our po licy in past times — and the right hon. Gentleman did not go so far into this question as I could have wished — has been one of perpetual meddling, with perpetually no result except that which is evil. We have maintained great arma ments, not, I sincerely believe, because we wanted to conquer or to annex any territory in Europe, but in order that whenever anything happens in Europe we may negotiate, intervene, advise, do something or other becoming what is called the dignity of this great country. Do not you suppose this is precisely the language of the French Emperor at this moment? The Emperor of the French builds great fleets because you build great fleets ; and then you build greater fleets because he builds great fleets. What does France want with great fleets ? Precisely that which you have always wanted with yours. If there be any disturbance between any countries in Europe, do you not think it would be beneath the dignity of France not to take a part in it, and, taking a part in it, not to take a part with tiiat influence and suc cess which becomes a great country like France ? And, therefore, without wish ing any more than England wishes to make conquests or to annex territory, France wishes to have great influence in Europe because it suits its dignity, and will add to the glory and historical renown of its Emperor. Well, now, that is exactiy the position in which we are, and we have no more right to blame the Emperor of the French than he has a right to blame us. We are both very silly, and I hope, from what I have, heard to-night, that at last we on our side the water are beginning to find this out. I shall not go into the question i859. FINANCIAL POLICY. 487 whether we are really about to be in vaded. I am told that so much has been said about it that the French really believe we are making this out cry to cover our designs of invading them. I saw a letter in one of their newspapers this morning in which it is stated that from Dunkirk to some other town there are mounds and fortifications and guns all ready, though concealed from the eye by grassy banks, to repress and to frustrate our designs. Recollect that the French Government went into the Russian war because they were anxious to associate themselves with the foreign policy of England. Subse quently they went into another war with us with a more distant nation — they went into the war with China. They took part with the noble Viscount now at the head of the Government in the inter ference which he promoted in Italy with regard to Naples some two or three years ago. It appears to me, that look ing at it from every point of view, read ing the newspapers, and hearing what everybody has to say, if there be one thing which is more distinctly marked in the policy of the Emperor of the French since his accession to the throne of France than another, it is his per petual anxiety, by every means con sistent with his. own safety, and with the interests as he believes of France, to ally himself with England and with the foreign policy of England. Well, if that be so, why should we perpetually create these suspicions, and generate in the minds of the people, nine-tenths of whom have small opportunity of as certaining the facts, alarms which give colour and justification to this enormous increase of our armaments, of which we have heard such loud complaints from both sides of that table to-night? I shall not go into the question ¦ of this Conference. At the first view my opinion would go very much with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Disraeli). I doubt very much — indeed, 1 ought to say, I do not doubt, but I feel sure — that if England is to go into the Conference merely to put its name to documents which are of no advantage to Italy, which do not engage the sym pathies of this nation, England had much better have nothing to do with it. But there is another course which I should like to recommend to the noble Lord who now holds the seals of the Foreign Office. I cannot believe that Frenchmen in matters of this nature are so very different from ourselves as some people wish to teach us. I do be lieve that the 36,000,000 Frenchmen engaged in all the honest occupations of their country, as our people are en gaged here, are as anxious for perpetual peace with England as the most intel ligent and Christian Englishmen can be for a perpetual peace with France. I believe, too, because I am convinced that it is his wisest course and his truest interest, that the Emperor of the French is also anxious to remain at peace with us, and the people in France are utterly amazed and lost in bewilder ment when they see the course taken by the press, and by certain Statesmen in this country. With that belief what would I do if I were in that responsible position?— for which, however, I know that I am thought to be altogether unfit — but if I were sitting on that bench and were in the position of the noble Lord, I would try to emancipate myself from those old, ragged, worthless, and bloody traditions which are found in every pigeon-hole and almost on every docu ment in the Foreign Office. I would emancipate myself from all that, and I would approach the French nation and the French Government in what I would call a sensible, a moral, and a Christian spirit. I do not say that I would send a special envoy to Paris to sue for peace. I would not com mission Lord Cowley to make a great demonstration of what he was about to do ; but I would make this offer to the French Govemment, and I would make . it with a frankness that could not be misunderstood ; if it were accepted on the other side it would be received with enthusiasm in England, and would be SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. marked as the commencement of a new era in Europe. I would say to the French Government, 'We are but twenty miles apart, the trade between us is nothing like what it ought to be, con sidering the population of the two countries, their vast increase of pro ductive power, and their great wealth. We have certain things on this side, which now bar the intercourse between the two nations. We have some re maining duties which are of no con sequence either to the Revenue or to Protection, which everybody has given up here, but they still interrupt the trade between you and us. We will reconsider these and remove them. We have also an extraordinarily heavy duty upon one of the greatest products of the soil of France — upon the light wines of your country.' The Chancellor of the Exchequer, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman opposite, may start at once, and say that involves a revenue of 1,500,000/., or at least of 1,200,000/. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the national debt being a flea-bite. What is 1,200,000/. — what is 1,500,000/., if it be so much as that — what is 2,000,000/. for the abolition of the wine duties or their reduction to a very low scale, if by such an offer as this we should en able the Emperor of the French to do that which he is most anxious to do? The only persons whom the French Emperor cannot cope with are the mono polists of his own country. If he could offer to his nation 30,000,000 of the English people as customers, would not that give him an irresistible power to make changes in the French tariff which would be as advantageous to us as they would be to his own countiy? I do believe that if that were honestly done, done without any diplomatic finesse, and without obstacles being attached to it that would make its acceptance impossible, it would bring about a state of things which history would pronounce to be glorious. The tone taken to-night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buck inghamshire and by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Ex chequer will find a response in the country. I am not accustomed to com pliment the noble Lord at the head of the Government. I have always con demned the policy which I thought wrong, but which, I have no doubt, the noble Lord thought was best calcu lated to promote the interests of the country. I believe he was mistaken, and that he was importing into this century the politics of the last; but I do not think it would be possible to select a Minister who could better carry out a policy which would be just to France, and beneficial to ourselves, than the noble Lord. Blood shines more, and attracts the vision of man more than beneficent measures. But the glory of such measures is far more lasting, and that glory the noble Lord can achieve. I live among the people. I know their toils and their sorrows, and I see their pauperism — for little better than pauperism is the lot of vast num bers of our countrymen from their cradles to their graves. It is for them I speak ; for them I give my time in this assembly; and in heartfelt sorrow for their sufferings I pray that some statesman may take the steps which I have indicated. He who can establish such a state of things between France and England will do much to promote the future prosperity of two great nations, and will show that eighteen hundred years of Christian professions are at length to be followed by some thing like Christian practice. TAX BILLS. POWER OF HOUSE OF LORDS. HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULY 6, i860. From Hansard. [Mr. Gladstone's Budget of i860 provided for the repeal of the Paper-duty. This por tion of the Budget was rejected by the House of Lords. Subsequently, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire for precedents as to the power of the Lords to deal with Money Bills. Mr. Bright served on that Committee, and drew up a report. The following speech was spoken on the Resolutions which were submitted to the House in pursuance of the report ultimately adopted by the Committee.] I cannot help being struck with an inconsistency in the right hon. Gentle man (Mr. fiorsman) who has just re sumed his seat. I am surprised that he has not concluded by moving that cer tain words in the first Resolution should be omitted, and in point of fact that the declaration which the House is about to make should be reversed. That would be in accordance with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and with the sentiments which many Members opposite have most vociferously cheered. I confess I do not know what a number of hon. Gentlemen opposite thought of the statements of the right hon. Gentle man about the headlong, precipitate, and reckless Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because I think there were some fifty of them who were more enthusiastic supporters of that Budget than a great number of the Members on this side of the House. I shall not follow the right hon. Gentleman in his endeavours to support his theories with regard to the extreme value of the House of Lords, nor shall I attempt to controvert them, because, in reality, that is not the question which is before the House. But, if the House will permit me, I will endeavour to keep as close to the question as I can, and I will state the grounds on which I am not satisfied with the course which this House is invited to take. I will not attack the Resolutions of the noble Lord, and I will not defend them, for I am not responsible for them. They appear to me unworthy of the occasion which is before us. I think they bear marks of having been prepared by more than one hand, and if they pass, and constitute the sole expression of our mind on this occasion, posterity will hardly fail to pronounce them the Reso lutions of a somewhat degenerate House of Commons. The first Resolution is a very good one, but it is very old. It is none the worse for that; and I am glad the noble Viscount did not think it necessary to endeavour to amend it. The other two Resolutions are, to my 490 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 6, mind, somewhat ambiguous and feeble, and are not in their expression of what I believe is constitutional usage, any more than as examples of composition in the English language, to be compared to the first and oldest. Last night we had two speeches from that side of the House after lorig silence — speeches which, I con fess, I heard with some surprise and with some pain. They appeared to me marked — to use a favourite phrase of the right hon. Gentleman below me — by great recklessness, and, if I may so speak, with great levity. Whatever may be the opinion of hon. Members on this question, it is not one to be treated in that manner. It is a serious question — whether the powers of this House have been infringed or not, and whether the other House of Parliament shall hereafter exercise powers which it has never heretofore exercised. I confess I was compelled to think of the truth we learn from history, that there is no greater sign of the decadence of a people than when we find the leaders of parties and eminent statesmen treat ing great questions as if they were not great, and solemn realities as if they were not real at all. I think I could observe in those speeches the triumph of" men who had found an advocate in the Prime Minister, whom they expected to meet as an opponent, and who were delighted that, acting with their con federates in the other House of Parlia ment, they were likely to obtain a signal party advantage. Is there anybody who has denied in point blank terms, except the right hon. Gentleman, that the House of Lords, in the course it has taken, has violated — I will not say the privileges of this House, for privilege is a word not easily de fined — but has broken in upon the usages of many centuries old — usages which our predecessors in this House have acknowledged to be of the utmost importance to our own powers and to the liberties of those whom we repre sent ? If there was nothing wrong, then why was there a committee ? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks neglected to answer that question. He made no opposition at the time; but three weeks afterwards he thinks that it would have been better if the committee had not been appointed. I will, how ever, undertake to affirm that, when the noble Viscount proposed that committee, every Member of this House thought the proposition a reasonable one. Why did we ransack the journals unless some thing had happened which jarred upon every man's sense of the rights and privi leges of this House and the usages of the House of Lords ? And why, having this committee, and instituting these researches, have we these Resolutions moved, not by a young, inexperienced, and unknown Member — if any such there be in the House of Commons — but by one of the oldest Members of this House, one of the ablest statesmen of the day, and at this moment the chief Minister of the Crown? Surely every one will admit that the circumstances were such as to justify the course that was taken in appointing the committee. Then I have another reason to give to hon. Gentlemen opposite, notwith standing their spasmodic cheering — I do not intend the word offensively — why we should have these very Reso lutions which you are about to agree to, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks, as far as I could understand, entirely approves, and which. you all feel delighted should be proposed by the noble Viscount, because they re lieve you from a considerable difficulty. I say that these Resolutions are a proof that the course which has been taken by the other House has been unusual, if not wrong ; because the Resolutions by im plication condemn what the Lords have done, and although they do not revoke the Act, or pledge this House to any particular course, yet, when those Reso lutions come to be considered, it will never be denied that the House of Com mons does by them express a unanimous, opinion that the course which has been taken by the other House is contrary to usage, and is calculated to excite the i86o. TAX BILLS. 491 jealousy and alarm of the Members of this House. I have been a member of that com mittee, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cam bridge knows my opinion of the com mittee and its labours. I think that committee fell wonderfully below its duties — that the course which it pur sued was poor'and spiritless ; and at a future time when the course it has taken is contrasted with the course taken by the House of Commons on previous occasions, it will be justly said that there has been a real and melancholy declension in the spirit of this House. That which I complain of in the pro ceedings of the committee, I also com plain of in respect to the manner in which some hon. Members have dis cussed this question. Half of the com mittee appeared to me to go into that committee as much the advocates of the House of Lords as of the House of Commons, and I find that some Mem bers of this House are of the same character. Speeches have been de livered here tiiat very few Members of the House of Lords would make on this, question, and I will undertake to say that not one Member of that House, who is known to the public by his political influence, legal knowledge, high character, or extensive learning, would dare to make the speech that has been made to-night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud. I went into the committee with the ut most frankness in order that I might ascertain, not altogether in what man ner the Lords had asserted their privi leges, but what our predecessors had done with regard to theirs. We have no right to let go one single particle of the privUeges and powers which the House of Commons have gained in past times ; and I took it for granted that if I examined fot some centuries back the course which the House of Commons had pursued— if I read their Resolu tions, if I read the reasons adduced at their conferences, if I observed the Acts which they passed, and the result of the discussions between the two Houses — we should be justified in concluding that we have rights to maintain for which our predecessors have contended. Now, several Members, following the example of the committee, have taken the House back for a long period of time. I will not go into those prece dents with the view of contending whether they do or do not refer to this particular case; but the House will permit me to mention two or three facts which I brought out of the Jour nals, and which convinced me that we should not take a sufficiently bold or decided course if we merely agree to the Resolutions of the noble Viscount. I will first refer to that very case which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge and myself fixed upon as the starting-point of our precedents — the precedents of the year 1407 ; and I trust every hon. Member has read it, either in the translation, or in the old Norman-French. It is worth reading, for it is a very curious case, and there is no other so like the recent action of the House of Lords as that which took place 453 years ago; for the House of Lords then proposed to continue ¦- tax to which the Commons had not assented, and the House of Commons were greatly disturbed at the House of Lords prolonging a tax to which the House of Commons had not given its assent. We then made a great leap, and from the year 1407 came down to-the year 1628. We then found the House of Commons insisting upon the initiation of Bills of Supply. They would not permit the name of the Lords to be inserted in the preamble of a Bill of Supply, neither would they agree to the compromise that neither the Lords nor the Commons should be in troduced, but that the High Court of Parliament should be mentioned. The House of Commons refused to pass the Bill in that shape, and submitted that the Commons should be named alone in the grant. This was done, and that has been the practice ever since in the preamble of Supply Bills. 492 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 6, Then we come to 1640, when the House of Lords were much more mo dest than they ought to have been, according to the right hon. Gentleman, who maintains that they ought to check, alter, amend, improve, and if necessary overthrow, all the financial arrange ments of the year that this House may agree to. The Declaration of 1640 set forth that the Lords stated at the Con ference that — ' My Lords would not meddle with mat ters of subsidy, which belong naturally and properly to you — no, not to give you advice therein, but have utterly declined it.' Then the House of Lords in 1640, we are asked to suppose, knew nothing of their constitutional rights, and the House of Commons of that day were less able than they are at present to judge of what is necessary for the performance of their proper functions in the State, and for the liberties of those whom they represent. Mr. Pym told their Lordships that they had not only meddled with matters of Supply, but that they had ' Both concluded the matter and order of proceeding, which the House of Commons takes to be a breach of their privilege, for which I was commanded to desire repara tion from your Lordships.' The Lords made reparation by de claring that they did not know they were breaking a right of the Commons in merely suggesting that Supply should have precedence over the consideration of grievances. I am not sure that even now, notwithstanding what has been said, the House of Lords have ever admitted by any Resolution that they have not the power to originate Sup plies. They have not the power, of course, to carry such a Bill, because if it came to this House it would fall down dead, unless that unhappy time should come when the theories of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud are carried out. Then comes the question of Amend ments. The Lords endeavoured to amend a Bill of Supply. I do not wonder that they did so, because the theories of the right hon. Gentleman must have been palatable to a good many of them. In 1671 it was pro posed not to continue a tax, but to reduce a tax — the duty on white sugar. The Lords proposed to reduce the duty from one penny per pound to five- eighths of a penny, and the House of Commons came to a Resolution that ' in all aids given to the King by the Commons the rate or tax ought not to be altered by the Lords.' A conference was held with the House of Lords, and the House of Commons then declared that the right which they claimed ' was a fundamental right, both as to the matter, the measure, and the time.' Then, what followed in the House of Lords ? They replied by the very same Resolution which the House of Com mons had passed in its own favour. The Resolution they passed asserting their power to make Amendments was just as strong, and in the same words as the Resolution which had been passed in a contrary sense by this House. They said, with reason, 'for if they cannot amend, or abate, or revise a Bill in Parliament' — they said this, mind, in answer to the Commons, who declared that they could not amend, but might negative the whole — they said, ' if we cannot amend, or abate, or alter in part, by what consequence of reason can we enjoy the liberty to reject the whole ?' The right hon. Gentleman the Mem ber for the University of Dublin last night showed himself a most unhappy critic. He called our attention to the condition of things in the United States. In fact, he proved himself — only he did not exactly understand what he was say ing — he showed himself to be strongly in favour of Americanising our institu tions in one respect. He said the Senate of the United States has the power not only of rejecting but of amending — which is quite true. When the founders of the American Republic were binding together the thirteen sovereign States in one great — and to be still greater — i86o. TAX BILLS. 493 combination, they looked back natu rally, to the practice of the country from which they were separating, to deter mine, or at least to learn, something from our Parliamentary practice. They found that in England the Lords could not begin Money Bills, could not alter or amend them ; but that theoretically — because the matter had never been decided — theoretically they had power to reject. But, then, what was the con clusion which they came to? They said the very same thing that the House of Lords had said in the year 1671 — ' It is perfectly childish to say that the House of Lords cannot alter, abate, or increase, but yet shall be able to reject.' They knew well that, although there was that theoretical right in England, yet, practically, it had never been enforced, and they came to the conclusion that if they should give to their own Senate power to reject, it would be necessary also to give them the power to amend ; and at this very moment the Senate of the United States might, not with that sort of responsibility of which the right hon. Gentleman is so fond, but with a real responsibility, every two members being the representatives of a particular sovereign State — that elected Senate does amend, and does reject, and does deal with finance in a manner which has never been permitted, nor even proposed in this country, except in the extra ordinary speech to which we have just listened. Seven years after the last date to which I have referred there arose another 'contest, in the course of which a Reso lution was passed. It is the strongest and most comprehensive Resolution that the House of Commons has ever passed in relation to this subject. I will not go into any elaborate argument upon it, but I will just read it, because it makes the argument I am about to bring before the House more continuous and clear. The House of Commons de clared this ; and it was not one of those sudden acts which the House of Com mons is now alleged to continually com mit ; but it was a Resolution drawn up by a committee specially appointed for that purpose — a Resolution specially considered and solemnly entered in the Journals of the House. It was in these words, — ' All Aids and Supplies, and Aids to His Majesty from Parliament, are the sole gifts of the Commons, and all Bills for granting such Aids and Supplies are to begin with the Commons; and it is the undoubted and sole right of the Commons to direct, limit, and appoint in such Bills the ends, purposes, considerations, condi tions, limitations, and qualifications of such grants, which ought not to be changed or altered by the House of Lords.' At this time, when the Lords had never pretended to reject a Bill, it is probable that such a proposition was a thing that never entered into the head of any Member of the House of Peers. I will undertake to say it would be difficult for any Member of this House to draw up a Resolution more compre hensive and conclusive as to the abso lute control of the House of Commons than that of the year 1678, which I have just now read. Shortly afterwards, in the year 1691,' there is another Resolution which goes minutely to the case before the House, and I beg the right hon. Gentlemen's attention to it. In that year a Bill was passed for appointing Commissioners to Examine the Public Accounts of the' Kingdom. The House of Lords amended, the House of Commons dis sented; and among the reasons which the House of Commons gave was this — ' That in aids, and supplies, and grants, the Commons only do judge of the ne cessities of the Crown.' What are we asked now ? We are asked to take into partnership another judge of the neces sities of the Crown. The House of Commons which for five hundred years, which, since the Revolution at least, has never withheld adequate Supplies from the Crown, is now to be depre ciated and defamed, as if it had been guilty of scantily supplying the wants of the Crown, and the House of Lords 494 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 6, is to be asked to do that which the House of Commons alone did in 1 691, namely, to judge of the necessities of the Crown, and to make the Supply greater than that which the House of Commons have believed to be sufficient. And, referring to that famous record of Henry the Fourth, we find it stated there that ' all grants and aids are made by the Commons, and are only assented to by the Lords.' A few years afterwards, our fore fathers were concerned in a question about the paper duties, just as we are at this time ; only they managed it better than we are doing now. In the year 1699 they declared : — ' It is an undoubted right and privilege of the Commons, that such aids are to be given by such methods, and with such provisions, as the Commons only shall think proper.' But now we are told that aids and pro visions for the Crown are to be raised by methods, not which the Commons think proper, but which the Lords think proper in opposition to the Commons. The House will perceive that I am very hoarse, and I am sorry to trouble them with other cases. In the year 1 700 there was another question raised between the two Houses : and the Com mons told the Lords that they could not agree with their Amendment, and they again affirmed that ' All the Aids and Supplies granted to His Majesty in Parliament are the sole and entire gift of the Commons ; and that it is the sole and undoubted right of the Commons to direct, limit, and appoint the ends, purposes, considerations, limitations, and qualifications of such grants.' And in 1702 there was another state ment that ' the granting and disposing of all public moneys is the undoubted right of the Commons alone.' In the year 1719 they objected to a clause which the Lords had introduced ; on the ground that it levied a new sub sidy not granted by the Commons, ' which is the undoubted and sole right of the Commons to grant, and from which they will never depart.' I want to ask the House, or any reasonable man, if we were discussing this question between the American Senate and the House of Representatives, or between the two Chambers of any foreign country, to what conclusion would each one of us necessarily come as to the purpose and object of all these declarations, to which I have refened, and which are only a portion of those which are to be found in the Journals of this House for the last five hundred years ? Would you say that they lead to the conclusion that the House of Lords could throw out a Bill repealing a tax of the value and magnitude of 1,300,000!. a-year? Would you say that if they could not abate a tax, or continue a tax, or limit a tax, or dispose of a tax, or control in any way a tax, or even give advice to the Commons in respect of a tax — could you say that notwithstanding all that which is clear and undeniable, they could, in the face of this House, reject a Bill which repealed a tax of 1 ,300,000/. a-year, without violating Parliamentary usage, and running contrary to all the declarations of this House for many centuries ? I think — and I put it be fore the Committee — and if any hon., Gentleman has done me the honour to read the draft Report which I prepared, he will see that I put before the Com mittee this long string of Cases, and Resolutions, and Declarations, couched in language not ambiguous, not feeble, but in language clear and forcible, which could not be mistaken ; and then I wished to ask the Committee — as I now ask the House — what was the end and object which the House of Com mons had in view in these repeated declarations of their rights and opinions touching the granting of Supplies, and the imposition of taxes upon the people ? I should say that it was this — they con firm and consecrate a practice of five hundred years, the principle which, till within the last hour, I thought every i86o. TAX BILLS. 495 man in England admitted — the funda mental and unchangeable principle of the Government and Constitution of the English people, that taxation and representation are inseparable in this kingdom. Let us look and see how these De clarations and Resolutions apply to this case. We are now in the year i860, and for a long period we have had no question of importance of this nature ; and we begin to fancy that, after all, there is no great importance in such a question. We have long had our per gonal liberties in this country — longer almost, in some classes of society, than history can tell ; but people perhaps fancy that their personal liberty cannot be endangered by this matter. No ; in this case we were so confident of our right and our power that we could not comprehend any infringement of our rights. These paper-duties, I believe, were granted in the reign of Queen Anne ; partly for revenue, and partly for other purposes ; which purposes, I pre sume, had some effect in procuring the rejection of this Bill by the Lords. It was a tax to prevent the publication and spread of political information. I see an hon. Gentleman up there in the gallery who is very much astonished at this; but he is not aware, probably, that all which I have stated is, if I am not misinformed, in the Preamble of the Bill. Public opinion in those days allowed of very bad reasons being given. They can be acted on now even when they are not given. From the time of Queen Anne, to the present time, this paper-duty has crippled a very important industry. It has taxed all the trades which required large quantities of paper —such as those of Manchester, of Shef field, of Nottingham, of Birmingham, and elsewhere ; but more than that, it has very successfully done what Queen Anne's Ministers wanted; it has threatened, and, to a large extent, it has' strangled the press of this countiy. Within the last thirty years— and hon. Members on the opposite side of the House I presume by this time are be coming conscious of it — new principles have become established in this country with regard to taxation on industry. New and wiser principles have been adopted, and not only adopted but es tablished; and there are some very powerful defenders of these new princi ples whom I have the pleasure to see opposite me to-night. The right hon. Gentleman the Mem ber for Stroud has proceeded on the old mode of discussion when arguments are not plentiful and facts are entirely wanting. He has raised his old friend, the hobgoblin argument, and has tried to show us that some frightful calamity must come upon us if this paper-duty be repealed : it is but a million-and-a- quarter. Does any hon. Gentleman believe that our prosperity or success — or that any vast interest of this country — can possibly depend on a million, more or less, in the general revenue of the empire? A million is a million. [' Hear.'] I am glad to have said some thing in which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leicestershire can coincide. There is no Member who has laid more stress on the importance of a million in the taxation of the people than I have done ; it is the tax of many villages, of many towns ; and it makes the difference sometimes between com fort and desolation ; and therefore I am the last person who would undervalue the amount of a million of the public revenue. But still I should be only making myself foolish, if I were to say that a million sterling — whether our taxation be 5o,ooo,oco/. as it was twenty years ago, or 70,000,000/. as it is now — was of the gigantic importance attri buted to it by the right hon. Gentleman ; for on this million, which we had pro vided a substitute for, before we relieved the people of that million, he founds his argument as to our recklessness, pre cipitancy, and madness, and drunken ness — I think he added— at least it was to be inferred from what he said ; for he made use of the converse, and spoke of sobriety. The noble Lord the Member for the 496 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 6, City of London in his speech last night reviewed the course of events, and told us what we all knew, that within the recollection, I suppose, of almost the youngest Member of the House, there have been Excise duties on many other articles ; I think, at one time, on candles ; certainly at a later period on leather ; I believe, since I came into this House, on glass ; and, still more recently, on soap. Well, all these Ex cise duties have been abolished. Can you find a man, from John O' Groat's to the Land's End, who will not tell you that these reckless principles, applied to the repeal of these Excise duties, were not of essential benefit, not only to the particular trades most inte rested, but to the great mass of the people, and to the industry by which your people live ? Well, then, having followed for many years a course so beneficial, we come at length, in the year i860, to the repeal of the paper-duty, which was promised by the House ; which was recommended by the Government officers ; which was called for by innumerable petitions; which was hoped for, I believe, by every person in the country who took an intelligent view of what was essential to aid the efforts which Government are making, by liberal grants every year, to promote the instruction of the people. This tax was 1,300,000/. It was a question whether sugar should be relieved to the extent of a million, tea of a million, or paper of a million : I am speaking in round numbers. The hon. Gentleman, not caring in the least about this reckless deficit, would evi dently have preferred sugar or tea ; but surely, as regards the question of the Supplies of the year, it was equally a matter of indifference to the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the duty were taken off tea, or sugar, or paper. But the conclusion to which he necessarily came was, that while in the cases of tea and sugar the relief was to the ex tent of a million of taxation, in the case of paper it was not only a relief to that amount in money, but it was a relief to a great industry, and to several other industries, whose prosperity must de pend on an abundant and cheap supply of paper. I speak with some know ledge of the subject, and I have not the least doubt that the abolition of the paper-duty was a positive relief to the whole people of the country equal to double the relief which would have been afforded by a reduction equal in amount to the duty on the articles of tea and sugar. But the question may be still more nanowed; and I beg the right hon. Gentleman's particular attention — for it appears now that his hostility to the Chancellor of the Exchequer renders him unable to understand the multipli cation table, or anything else that is plain. If the paper-duty expired on the 15th of August, the reduction of revenue between that time and the end of the financial year would probably not be more than 600,000/., but certainly would not exceed 700,000/. I am sorry the House did not take more economical advice in past years. But we are now come, according to the right hon. Gen tleman, to this extremity of our re sources, that you cannot take 700,000/. this year from an Excise which is stran gling a great trade, and put an addi tional halfpenny or penny on the in come-tax, without bringing about such a frightful state of things, that the Con stitution itself and the usage of Parlia ment must be violated, and we must bring in a foreign power to check us in our precipitous, reckless, and headlong career. It may be very far from the modesty which becomes a Member of this House, but I confess I am of opinion that the House of Commons is the best judge in this country of what is necessary for the trade, and also what is required by the financial condition of the countiy. First of all, there are among us a good many sagacious men of all sorts. There are, as I know, some very sagacious land owners ; we found it very hard to beat them, even when they had a very bad case. We have a veiy sagacious i860. TAX BILLS. 497 Gentleman down here who spoke to night, and who, whatever be die ques tion which comes before us, always finds some very fitting object for his merci less and unscrupulous vituperation. We know, many of us intimately, all the details connected with these questions ; in fact, I suppose, there is not a trade in this country of any importance or note that cannot find its representatives in this House. For many years past we have had the absolute control of questions of finance, and I undertake to declare, notwithstanding what the right hon. Gentleman has stated, that there is not a representative body in the world which during the last twenty years has done more in the way of financial and fiscal reforms with greater advantage to the people. And yet, at the end of that period, when the triumphs of this House are to be found not in granite and bronze monuments, but in the added comforts of the population, and in the increased and undoubted loyalty of the people, you are now, forsooth, asked by the right hon. Gentleman to abdicate your functions, and to invite 400 gentle men, who are not traders, who have never been financiers, who do not pos sess means in any degree equalling your own of understanding the question — you are to ask them to join your councils, and not only to advise, but to check, and even to control. It is one of the points which gave me most grief in regard to this question, that I have seen the House of Lords taking, of all cases, perhaps the worst that could possibly come before tbem, and inflicting suddenly, unexpectedly, and, in my opinion, groundlessly, most harsh and cruel treatment on all the persons who were interested directly in this question of the paper-excise. We are asked now, in terms not ambiguous, to overthrow the fabric which has grown up in this countiy, which has existed, and existed without damage, for at least 500 years. By the Report of the right hon. Gentleman we find that as far back as the year 1640 the House of Com mons made this declaration, to which I ask the particular attention of Mem bers of the present House. They said : — ' We have had uninterrupted possession of this privilege ' [the privilege of the un disputed control over the taxation and finances of the country] ' ever since the year 1407, confirmed by a multitude of precedents both before and after, not shaken by one precedent for these 300 years.' If that be so, it carries us back for a period of 520 years; and yet we are asked to-night, in the most unblushing and audacious manner, to overthrow this magnificent and time-honoured fabric, and admit to powers, to which they have hitherto been unaccustomed, the hereditary branch of the Legislature. Now, I say that the House of Lords in the course they have taken have com mitted two offences, which I had much rather they had not committed, because I am not anxious that they should de preciate themselves in the eyes of the people of this country. [A laugh.] If hon. Gentlemen opposite were as anxious that they should continue limited to their proper functions, doing all the good that it is possible for them to do, and as little harm as possible, they would not laugh with an apparent un belief in what 1 have just stated. I say the House of Lords have not behaved even with fair honour towards the House of Commons in this matter. Every man of them who knew anything about what he was voting for knew that the House of Commons repealed the paper-excise, not merely because it wished to remit a million of taxes, but because it thought that to strangle a great industry was an injurious mode of raising revenue, and, therefore, it transferred that amount of taxation from the paper-excise to the income-tax. Then, I say if that were known in the House of Lords, although they might have disapproved the change, and might have thought it better if it had not been made, it was not an honourable treatment of this House; and further, if they had the power which the American Senate has, and which the 498 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 6, right hon. and learned Gentleman wishes them to have, still it would not have been fair to this House to enact the ad ditional penny on income, and to refuse to repeal the tax on paper. That is a question which every man can under stand ; and I cannot believe that there is any Member of this House who does not comprehend it when put in that shape. But there is another thing in which the House of Lords have done wrong. They have trampled on the confidence and taken advantage of the faith of the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman last night made a very curi ous statement on this subject, which, if I were a Member of the House of Lords, I should be disposed to find fault with. He said : — ' Why, what can you expect ? It was the laches of the House of Com mons that gave the House of Lords the opportunity of doing what they have done.' But, surely, if for 500 years the House of Lords has never done this, — if since the Revolution, even with the search into precedents made by the Committee, not a single case which ap proaches this can be discovered, — is the House of Commons blameable for think ing that it was at least dealing with a House which would abide by the usages of the Constitution, and would not take advantage of the change which the House of Commons made for the public interest in the mode of imposing taxa tion ? Instead of certain taxes being imposed annually, or for short periods, by which the House held a constant control over them, they were made per manent. The West India interest said they did not want their trade to be troubled and disturbed every year ; and the sugar duties were made perpetual. But then are we always to treat the Lords as political burglars, and invent bolts, bars, locks, everything which may keep them from a possible encroach ment on our rights? Must we treat them as men who, if you give them the smallest opportunity, will come down upon you and do that which you wish them not to do ? If that be so, you must assuredly take certain precautions to prevent them from continuing such a course. It is said that the Paper Duty Abo lition Bill was thrown out in the Upper House by a great majority. That is a fact with which we are all well ac quainted. I was talking recently to a Peer who gave an explanation of this, which I will venture to repeat. ' If,' he said, ' the regular House of Lords, that is to say, the hundred Members who during the session really do transact the business, if they only had been in the House, the Paper Duties Repeal Bill would certainly have passed.' That, however, happened which we all under stand, and I have no objection to repeat the exact words used to me. ' About two hundred Members, who hardly ever come there, were let loose for the occa sion.' Most of them are unknown to the country as politicians, and they voted out this Bill by a large majority, with a chuckle, thinking that by doing. so they were making a violent attack on the Ministry, and especially on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is a House, recollect, in which three Mem bers form a quorum. I sometimes hear complaints in this House that Ministers pass measures very late at night, when, perhaps, only fifty Members are present, of whom thirty are connected with the Government ; but in the House of Lords three form a quorum. Proxies may be used too ; and these three Peers forming a quorum, with proxies in their pockets, are to dispose of great questions involv ing 70,000,000/. of taxes raised from the industry of the people of this countiy. At all events, if the two hundred Peers who voted that night choose to come down on other occasions, there is no single measure of finance, however libe ral or however much for the advantage of the people, that they would not re ject, and thus frustrate the beneficial intentions of this House. But after all I have said I am going to make this admission, that the Lords of course can reject a Bill, and can also initiate a Bill if they like. If it were not so late (and the Lords like to get i860. TAX BILLS. 499 away about seven) — if it were not so late, the Lords might to-night bring in a Bill levying a tax or voting money for the service of the year, and they can also reject any Bill you may send up to them. They are omnipotent within the four walls of their House, just as we are within the four walls of this House. But if they take their course, one contrary to the general practice of that House and of Parlia ment, it becomes us to consider what course we will take. We cannot com pel them to make any change ; but we may ourselves take any course that we please, and we may at least offer them the opportunity of altering the course they have taken. My opinion is that it would have been consonant with the dignity of this House, wholly apart from the ques tion of i ,300,000/. a-year, or of 700,000/. the sum for this year, to have passed another Bill to repeal the paper-duty. If that had been a duty which I con sidered not the best to repeal, I still should have laid aside all partiality for a particular tax. The question before us is of far more importance than the maintenance or abolition of any parti cular tax. There can be nothing more perilous to the countiy, or more fatal to the future character of this House, than that we should do anything to impair and lessen the powers we have received from our predecessors. I un derstand there are other sums amount ing to about 1,500,000/. or 2,000,000/. which have yet to go up to the House of Lords. Now, if the noble Lord at the head of the Government, acting up to his position, which I think he has failed to do in this matter, had asked us, not on the ground (for that is a low ground) that the paper-duty was the best duty to repeal, but on the ground that as the House of Commons have come to that decision they should abide by it ; but if he had asked us to pass an other Bill, with an altered date, per haps, and sent it up again to the House of Lords, he would have given them the opportunity of reconsidering their deci sion ; and my full belief is that a course like this, taken without passion and without collision, would have been met in a proper temper by that House ; this difficulty would have been got over, and in all probability both Houses for the future would have proceeded more regu larly and easily than they are likely to do under the plan proposed by the noble Lord. Having stated that I shall leave the questions of these Resolutions, I say there is no reason whatever in the argu ments which have been used why this duty should have been maintained, or why it was perilous to remit it. Its repeal was consistent with the policy of the Whigs before Sir Robert Peel came into power, with the policy of Sir Robert Peel's Government, of Lord Derby's Government, of Lord John Russell's Government, of Lord Aberdeen's Go vernment, of Lord Palmerston's Govem ment, of Lord Derby's last Government, and of the existing Government. The policy of the repeal of the paper-duty is the recognized policy of this House, and it is the admitted interest of this country. Then, why, unless it be for a party triumph, unless it be to attack a particular Minister, why is this question of 700,000/. this year, and less than double that sum in future years, raised to an importance which does not belong to it ? and why, for the sake of a party triumph, are the great interests con nected with it to be damaged and tor tured, as they now are, by the action of one House of Parliament ? I am told there are Members of this House who would not support the Government in this course, and I should certainly hardly expect that all the Gentlemen on the benches opposite would lend it their sanction. Yet I doubt whether if the noble Lord at the head of the Go vemment were to act in the manner I have indicated, the great majority of them would be induced, upon reflection, to adopt the policy which they have pursued with respect to these Resolu tions, and whether the House of Com mons would not have passed a second 32- 500 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JULY 6, Bill even by a larger majority than that by which we passed the last. There is a rumour that some Gentle men on this side of the House object to such a course of proceeding, and hon. Gentlemen opposite have, perhaps, on that account been led to take up a line of action upon this question in which they otherwise could not hope to suc ceed. An hon. Gentleman behind me, from whom I should have expected something better, said only last night, in speaking of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he was a reckless and unsafe Finance Minister. That obser vation he no doubt confined to the question of the repeal of the paper-duty ; but I cannot forget that in 1853 we had the same Chancellor of the Exchequer as to-day, and that it was asserted then also that he had committed great errors. [Cheers from the Opposition.] Yes ; but your Chancellor of the Exchequer was not in office long enough to per petrate any great mistakes. Not long after that right hon. Gentleman acceded to office, he brought in a Budget which the House of Commons rejected ; and upon the next occasion on which he proposed one, he found it necessary to shift the burden of responsibility to the shoulders of his successor. But in 1853, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford was Chancellor of the Exchequer, I put it to those among us who were then Members of this House, whether it is not the fact that the strength of the Government of Lord Aberdeen, of which he was a Member, was not mainly to be attributed to his dealing with the taxation of the country in a manner which met with universal approbation out of doors ? We come now to the present year, and while I do not wish to depreciate the popularity, or the character, or the ability of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, or any of his col leagues, still I undertake to say that the power and authority which his Ad ministration has acquired during the present session, it has gained mainly as the consequence of the beneficial pro positions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made. I heard some body last night — I am not quite sure it was not the right hon. Gentleman below me to-night — talk of the House of Commons having been partly charmed and partly coerced into the acceptance of these propositions. But if that be so, and if we have proved ourselves to be soft-headed children who could be so swayed, I must say it appears to me very strange that such should be the case ; for I think the House of Com mons has upon the contrary shown wonderful independence, and has proved itself to be extremely free from all those ties, the acting in accordance with which usually enables a Government to con duct the business of a session with success. Be that, however, as it may, I repeat that the Budget of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when it was laid before the country, was received throughout all the great seats of industry, and among the farmers too — for it tended to benefit them as well as the inhabitants of towns — with universal approbation. The right hon. Gentleman below me has been indulging himself to-night, in accordance with his custom, in con demning the French Treaty, and I must say we have heard a great deal upon that subject since it was first mooted in this House. We have had it com mented upon by a great journal in this country, whose motives I will not at tempt to divine, but whose motto must, I think, be that which Pascal said ought to have been adopted by one of the ancients — ' Omnia pro tempore, sed nihil pro veritate,' — which being trans lated, may be rendered — ' Everything for the Times, but nothing for truth.' We have had, in short, every description of falsehood propounded with respect to this Treaty. The right hon. Gen tleman below me has not hesitated to-night to give currency to representa tions with respect to it which are wholly inaccurate, and to which, if I were not here, I would apply a still stronger TAX BILLS. 501 term. Did not the right hon. Gentle man say our manufacturers were — I forget the word— plaintiffs — no, sup pliants in the antechamber of the Em peror of the French? The statement is one, I can tell him, which is wholly untrue; nay, more, — and I may say that with the exception of some right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Treasuiy bench, there is no one more competent to give an opinion on the subject than myself, for reasons with which the House is of course acquainted, — I tell the right hon. Gentleman that nothing can exceed the good faith and the liberality with which that whole ques tion is being treated by the Commis sioners of the French Government. I would have him know that they are as anxious as our Commissioners that a great trade between England and France should spring up ; and I will add that in the case of nations and Go vemments in amity one with the other, whose representatives are endeavouring in all fairness and frankness to extend the commerce between both, he is neither a statesman nor a patriot who seeks to depreciate in the eyes of his countrymen the instrument by which it is hoped these results will be accomplished, and who thus does his utmost to prevent its success. I come now to ask the House what is this reform in the tariff introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, by which you are so frightened? Is it something novel ? The right hon. Gentleman below me says it is a scheme both new and gigantic in its proportions, and fatal in its principle. I was speaking last week to an hon. Member for a south-western county who sits on the benches opposite, and he spoke in terms of exultation to me of the success of late years of that branch of industry in which you are peculiarly interested. Is it honest, then, that you should make such acknowledgments and not consent to extend further the principles which the whole countiy has pronounced to be sound and beneficial ? We boast of the freedom of our commerce. That commerce has more than doubled since I had first the honour of a seat in this House. When, therefore, you now attack, through the Chancellor of the Exchequer, principles, the adoption of which has wrought this great good, you are not, in my opinion, pursuing a course which will enhance your reputa tion with the country which you pro fess to represent. There is not, I con tend, a man who labours and sweats for his daily bread ; there is not a woman living in a cottage, who strives to make her humble home happy and comfortable for her husband and her children, to whom the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer have not brought hope, and to whom his mea sures, which have been defended with an eloquence few can equal, and with a logic none can contest, have not ad ministered consolation. I appeal to the past and present condition of the country, and I ask you, solemnly, to oppose no obstacle to the realization of those great and good principles of legis lation. I will not enter further into this ques tion. I am unable from physical causes to speak with clearness, and I am afraid I must have somewhat pained those who have heard me. I must, however, repeat my regret that the noble Vis count at the head of the Government has not shown more courage in this matter than he appears to me to have exhibited, and that the House of Com mons has not evinced more self-respect. I fear this session may as a consequence become memorable as that in which, for the first time, the Commons of England has surrendered a right which for 500 years they had maintained un impaired. I, at least, and those who act with me, will be clear from any participation in this ; we shall be free from the shame which must indelibly attach to the chief actors in these pro ceedings. I protested against the order of reference which the noble Lord pro posed, though I sat and laboured on the Committee with earnest fidelity on 502 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. behalf of the House of Commons. I have felt it an honour to sit in this House up to this time, and I hope that hereafter the character of this House will not be impaired by the course which is about to be taken. I have endeavoured to show to my country men what I consider to be almost the treason which is about, to be committed against them. I have refused to dis honour the memory of such Members as Coke and Selden, and Glanville and Pym ; and, if defeated in this straggle, I shall have this consolation, that I have done all I can to maintain the honour of this House, and that I have not sacrificed the interests which my con stituents committed to my care. —&&}&>$&**— PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAY 3, 1864. From Hansard. [Spoken on Mr. Ewart's Motion for the AboUtion of the Punishment of Death.] I shall not, after the discussion which has taken place, and which has been, I think, almost all on one side, take up the time of the House by making a speech. But the right hon. Gentleman (Sir George Grey) has said something which I am obliged to contest to some extent. He has quoted the opinions of Judges upon this question, and he has laid, I think, more stress upon those opinions than they generally deserve. I think, if there is one thing more certain than another, it is this — that every amelioration of the criminal code of this country has been carried against the opinion of the majority of the Judges. And I may on this point quote the opinion of an eminent Irish Judge, who, I believe, is still living, and with whom I had some conversation in Ireland about fifteen years ago. The con versation turned on this very question. He said, ' Beware of the Judges. If Parliament had acted on the opinion of the Judges, we should have been hanging now for forgery, for horse stealing, and for I know not how many other offences for which capital punish ment has long been abolished.' Now the right hon. Gentleman pro poses to have a Commission, as I under stand, instead of a Committee. There was an inconsistency in his speech, I thought, on that point; for at first he seemed to say that the question, whether capital punishment should be continued or be abolished, was not one which a Committee of this House was fitted to consider ; but towards the close of his speech he moderated that by admitting that some of the points referred to in the Amendment, which is, I suppose, to be agreed to, might be considered by a Commission. I will undertake to say that if he were to inquire in every civi lized countiy in the world where there is a representative legislative assembly, he would find that the changes which had been made in their laws have been made invariably in consequence of in quiries instituted by those Chambers and carried on by means of Committees formed amongst their members. I admit that the bulk of the Com mittees of this House are not fairly con stituted. I served very assiduously on Committees for the first ten or fifteen years after I became a Member of this House, and I did not find out till about the year 1850 or 1853 that a Committee was generally of no use ; and from that time to this I have avoided, in nine cases out of ten, when I have been applied to, sitting upon a Committee. But that observation refers principally to questions where political interests are concerned. When, however, you come to a question of this nature, where we 5°4 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MAY 3, should necessarily take the opinion. of Judges, to whom the right hon. Gentle man pays so much attention, and of those men of whose great authority he has spoken, and of a great many other men who are not wedded to existing systems, and of men who could give us the facts with regard to other coun tries, I say that a Committee of this House, so -far at any rate as obtaining evidence is concerned, I think would be equal to any tribunal, or any court of inquiry, which the right hon. Gentleman could establish. The right hon. Gentleman has led the House away a little from the main question. The main question proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries is whether capital punishment should be retained or abolished. The right hon. Gentleman has led the House into a discussion of a question some what personal to himself — in connection with recent cases. I know the right hon. Gentleman was justified in what he said in reference to the position which he holds in the performance of his painful duties with regard to the execution of the criminal law. But that is not exactly what is wanted — this Motion was not brought forward for that purpose. I think the House would agree with great unanimity if the right hon. Gentle man would introduce a Bill proposing certain changes at which he has hinted. This country has always been the most barbarous of all civilized nations in its punishments ; and at this moment is the most barbarous still, notwithstanding what the right hon. Gentleman said about the punishment of death being inflicted only for the crime of mur der. But did he not afterwards tell the House that this crime of murder is a net which includes cases as different in their quality as in their guilt and in their consequences to society, as the difference between the lowest class of murder which the law now includes and the pettiest larceny which is punishable before a single magistrate. Yet all these are part of the same list of crimes, and if a jury does its duty— that is what is always said, as if a jury had no other duty but inexorably to send a man to the scaffold- — if a jury will find a ver dict of guilty, the punishment is death, unless the right hon. Gentleman, impor tuned by a number of persons, or having examined into the case himself, will interfere to save the unfortunate wretch from the gallows. There can be no doubt whatever that if capital punishment be retained, and if it be absolutely necessary that there should be a crime called murder to which capital punishment attaches, it is no less necessary that there should be, as there are in some other countries, three or four degrees of manslaughter, and that for the highest degree of man slaughter there should be the highest kind of secondary punishment, and that the power should be placed in the hands of the jury of determining what should be the particular class in which the criminal should be placed. There is no doubt that this is necessary to be done. I think Voltaire — who said a good many things that were worth re membering — remarked that the English were the only people who murdered by law. And Mirabeau, when in this countiy, hearing of a number of persons who had been hanged on a certain morning, said, ' The English nation is the most merciless of any that I have heard or read of.' And at this very moment, when we have struck off within the last fifty years at least a hundred offences which were then capital, we remain still in this matter the most merciless of Christian countries. If anybody wishes to satisfy himself upon this point let him take those late cases in which the right hon. Gentleman has had so much trouble. Take the case of Townley; take the case of Wright ; take the case of Hall at War wick; and I will take the liberty of repeating — what I said to the right hon. Gentleman when I was permitted to see him on the case of die convict Hall — that there is not a country in Europe, nor a State among the Free States of PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 505 America, in which either of those criminals would have been punished with death. Yet we have gone on leaving the law as it is ; and the right hon. Gentleman, to my utter astonish ment, every time this question has been discussed, has given us very much the same speech as he has addressed to us to-night: he has repeated the same arguments for continuing a law which drives him to distraction almost every time he has to administer it. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, who has had to face the suffering which has been brought on him by this law, has never had the courage to come to this House and ask it fairly to consider, in the light of the evidence which all other Governments and the laws of all other countries afford, whether the time has not come when this fearful punishment maybe abolished. The right hon. Gentleman says the punishment is so terrible that it will deter offenders from the commission of ' crime. Of course it is terrible to one just standing upon the verge of the grave ; but months before, when the crime is committed, when the passion is upon the criminal, the punishment is of no avail whatsoever. I do not think it is possible to say too much against the argument that because this is a dreadful punishment, it is very efficient to deter a criminal from the commission of crime. As the right hon. Gentleman proposes to give a Commission, I shall not trouble the House with some observations that I had intended to make. There are, however, two or three cases which have not been mentioned, and which I should like to bring under the notice of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries refened to Russia. Russia is a country in which capital punish ments have for almost a hundred years been unknown. I was reading yesterday a very remarkable Report of a Com mittee of the Legislature of the State of New York, written in the year 1841. It states that the Empress Elizabeth determined that for twenty years there should be no capital punishments in Russia. The Empress Catherine, in giving her instructions for the new Grand Code, stated her opinion upon the subject in these words : — • ' Experience shows that the frequent re petition of capital punishment has never yet made men better. If, therefore, I can show that in the ordinary state of society the death of a citizen is neither useful nor necessary, I shall have pleaded the cause of humanity with success.' She then says what I think is worthy of hearing : — ' When the laws bear quiet and peaceful sway, and under a form of government approved by the united voices of the nation, in such a state there can be no necessity for taking away the life of a citizen.'The exception is in the case of some great political offender whose incarcera tion might not destroy his power of doing mischief; and I believe that since the enactment of this law there have been only two cases of persons who have been put to death by law in Russia, and that these have been cases arising out of circumstances of a political and in surrectionary character. Count Segur, the French Ambassador at St. Peters- burgh, states that the Empress Catherine said to him — 'We must punish crime without imitating it. The punishment of death is rarely any thing but a useless barbarity.' In reporting this to the French Govern ment, Count Segur stated that under the mildness of the law murders were very rare in Russia. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries refened to the case of Tus cany, where it is well known that for a lifetime capital punishment has never been inflicted. In the case of Belgium, to which reference was made by the . learned Member for Tiverton, as one of the most remarkable, I think the right hon. Gentleman was not successful in getting rid of his figures. It happens, 506 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MAY 3, as I understand, that the law in Belgium does not prohibit capital punishments ; but the result of omitting to inflict capital punishment has been so satis factory that now the law .-is literally obsolete, and that capital punishment is never inflicted. Take then the case of Bombay, which is of a very striking character. We have the evidence from the pen of Sir James Mackintosh, who says, — ' It will appear that the capital crimes committed during the last seven years (1804 to 1811) with no capital executions, have in proportion to the population not been much more than a third of those committed in the first seven years (1756 to 1763) when forty-seven persons suffered death.'He adds, — * The intermediate periods lead to the same results.' The House ought to bear in mind, that to us who have examined this ques tion for many years, no fact is more clearly demonstrated than this — there is no country in the world, be it a great empire or be it a small state, where the law has been made milder and capital punishment has been abolished, in which there is any proof that murders have been more frequent, and the security of life in the slightest degree endangered. If that be so — if I could convince every Member of this House that the abolition of capital punishment would not cause more murders than the average of the last ten years — if all that would be left would be that those ten or twelve wretches who are publicly strangled every year would be living in some prison, or engaged in some labour with a chance of penitence, and with life not suddenly cut off by law — is there a man in this House — I speak not of party, or to one side or the other — who would dare to demand that we should still continue these terrible punishments ? There was, not long ago, in this House, a venerable old Gentleman who represented the University of Oxford, who constantly quoted in the discussion on this subject a certain verse of a certain chapter in the Book of Genesis. I am very glad that in the seven or eight years that have elapsed since this question was last discussed, we have advanced so far that nobody has now brought forward that argu ment. We have discussed it to-night by the light of proved experiments, of facts, and of reason. Seeing what has been done in this country by the ameli oration of the Criminal Code, and what has been done in all other countries, is there any man with one particle of sense or the power of reason who believes that human life in this country is made more secure because ten or twelve men are publicly put to death every year ? The security of human life does not depend upon any such miserable and barbarous provision as that. The secu rity for human life depends upon the reverence for human life; and unless you can inculcate in the minds of your people a veneration for that which God only has given, you do little by the most severe and barbarous penalties to preserve the safety of your citizens. If you could put down what it is that secures human life in figures and esti mate it at 100, how much of it is to be attributed to your savage law, and how much of it to the reverence for human life implanted or existing in the human soul? No doubt 5 or 10 out of the 100 may be owing, for aught I know, to the influence of the law ; but 90 or 95 per cent, is owing to that feeling of reverence for human life. Whenever you hang a man in the face of the public under the circumstances to which we are so accustomed in this country, if you do in the slightest degree deter from crime by the shocking nature of the punishment, I will undertake to say that you by so much — nay, by much more — weaken that other and greater security which arises from the reverence with which human life is regarded. Since the notice of this Motion was given by my hon. Friend I took the 1864. PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 507 liberty of writing to the Governors of three of the States of America in which capital punishment has for several years been abodshed ; and, with the permis sion of the House, I will read extracts from the answers which I have re ceived. I think they are important in a discussion of this nature when we are attempting to persuade doubtful and timid people that we are not proposing a rash or dangerous change. In the State of Rhode Island, one of the small States of America, with a population of not more than 200,000, capital punish ment has been abolished. The Go vernor, the Hon. J. Pye Smith, writing from the Executive Department, March 21, 1864, says: — ¦ ' I. The death penalty was abolished in this State in the year 1852. 2. I do not think its abolition has had any effect upon the security of life. 3. Is the law against the death penalty sustained by the public opinion of the State? Very de cidedly. 4. Are convictions and punish ments more certain than before the change was made? I think they are. 5. What is the punishment now inflicted on such criminals as were formerly punished with death? Imprisonment for life at hard labour. I have conversed with our Supreme Judge, State attorney, and warden of the State prison, and they support my own established views upon the subject.' In a second letter, dated April 4, and which I received a few days ago, he says : — ' Our present able Chief Justice says : — " Although opposed to the present law when passed, I am equally opposed to a change in it until the experiment has been tried long enough to satisfy us that it has failed. I am clearly of opinion that the present state of the law is sustained by public opinion, and I believe it will con tinue to be until it is satisfactorily shown that crimes against life have been consider ably increased in consequence of it. My observation fully justifies me in saying that conviction for murder is far more certain now in proper cases than when death was the punishment of it." ' Here is the answer which I received from the Hon. Austin Blair, the Go vernor of the State of Michigan : — ¦ ' Executive Office, Lancing, ' March 23, 1864. ' I. The death penalty for murder was abolished March 1, 1847, when the re vised statutes of 1846 went into effect. 2. Life is not considered less secure than before ; murders are probably less frequent in proportion to population. Twenty years ago the population of the State was 300,000, and we have now a population of about 900,000. Then it was chiefly agricultural, and now we have mines of copper, iron, coal, &c, bringing into proximity dissimilar classes, and increasing the probabilities of frequent crime. Before the abolition of the death penalty, murders were not unfrequent, but convictions were rarely or never obtained. It became the common belief that no jury could be found (the prisoner availing himself of the com mon law right of challenge) which would convict. Since the abolition there have been in seventeen years thirty-seven con victions. 3. There can be no doubt that public opinion sustains the present law and is against the restoration of the death penalty. 4. Conviction and punishment are now much more certain than before the change was made. Murder requires a greater amount of proof than any other crime, and it is found practically that a trial for murder excites no very unusual interest.' It, therefore, does not make a hero of the criminal. The letter proceeds : — ' 5. The punishment now is solitary confinement at hard labour for life. Since 1 86 1 this class of prisoners have been em ployed as other prisoners, as it was found difficult to keep them at work in cells with out giving them tools, and there was danger of their becoming insane. The reform has been successfully tried, and is no longer an experiment.' • The last letter is from the Hon. J. S. Lewis, the Governor of Wisconsin, and is dated Madison, March 29, 1864 : — ' The evil tendency of public executions, 5o8 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. may 3, the great aversion of many to the taking of life rendering it almost impossible to obtain jurors from the more intelligent portion of the community, the liability of the innocent to suffer so extreme a penalty and be placed beyond the reach of the pardoning power, and the disposition of courts and juries not to convict, fearing the innocent might suffer, convinced me that this relic of barbarism should be abolished. The death penalty was re pealed in 1853. No legislation has since re-established it, and the people find them selves equally secure, and the public more certain than before. The population in 1850 was 305,000; in i860 it was 775,000. With this large increase of population we might expect a large in crease of criminal cases, but this does not appear to be the case.' If you take these two States of Wis consin and Michigan, which have been settled at a comparatively recent date, you will see that it was highly probable, as they are on the outskirts of advanc ing civilization, that crimes of violence would not be uncommon. But here, with the abolition of this punishment, crimes and violence are not more com mon than before ; people are just as secure, the law is upheld by public opinion,, and the elected Governors of three States, after the experience of these years, are enabled to write me letters like these, so satisfactory and so conclusive with regard to the effect of the experiment as it has been tried with them. The special cases that have been men tioned to-night with regard to execu tions have not been by any means the most fearful that have occurred. There was a case last year at Chester of so revolting a nature that I should be afraid to state the details to the House. I think it is hardly conceivable that a Christian gentleman, a governor of a gaol, and a clergyman, another Chris tian gentleman, should be concerned in such a dreadful catastrophe as then took place. Sir, if there be fiends below, how it must rejoice them to discover that, after the law of gentleness and love has been preached on earth for eighteen hundred years, such a scene as that could be enacted in our day in one of the most civilized and renowned cities of this country. And these are cases which will happen again if this law remains ; and ad the difficulties which the right hon. Gentleman has alluded to to-night and on previous oc casions are difficulties inseparable from the continuance of this punishment. The right hon. Gentleman has re ferred to one or two cases; the noble Lord opposite (Lord Hemy Lennox) has likewise referred to one or two. The case at Glasgow, the case at Derby, the recent case in London, and the recent case at Warwick, are cases which move whole populations ; and, if that be so, how can any man argue that this law is in a satisfactory state, or that this punishment can be wisely and bene ficially administered and executed in this country? Parliament, unfortunately — we need not disguise it, and I will not at any rate conceal it — Parliament has been very heedless upon this question. Secretaries of State have gone on from year to year in the performance of their duties with great pain to themselves, and yet they have never had the courage to ask Parliament to consider whether the system might not be entirely abolished. Does not every man now feel that it is in opposition to the sentiment of what I will call — and I think I may say it without disparaging anybody — the most moral and religious population of this country, the men who have led the ad vance during the past century in every contest that we have had with ignorance, and crime, and cruelty, in whatsoever shape it has shown itself? And every day they are becoming more and more estranged from the spirit and operation of this law. Whenever there are paragraphs float ing about in the newspapers that on the 15th or the 25th of such a month such an one is to meet his doom for some crime, however foul, there is in every city, in eveiy parish, and in almost 1864. PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. 5°9 every house in this countiy where there is any regard to humanity and to Chris tianity, a feeling of doubt as to whether this law is right, and a feeling of disgust and horror amongst hundreds of thou sands of the best portion of our people. Now, merciful laws are, in my opinion, the very highest testimony to any Go vemment, as I likewise think that they are the highest blessing a people can enjoy. I believe they give security to a Government, and they soften and humanise the people. All the steps that have been taken in this direction have been so successful, that I wonder that even the hon. gentleman the late Lord Mayor of London should not him self have come to the conclusion that after all we could still sleep comfort ably in our beds if men were not hanged; and that, if the law were gentle and merciful whilst it was just, we should find gradually growing up in the minds of all classes a greater dis like to crime and violence, and a greater reverence for human life. Benjamin Franklin, a great authority on matters of this nature, said that the virtues are all parts of a circle; that whatever is humane is wise; whatever is wise is just; and whatever is wise, just, and humane, will be found to be the trae interests of States, whether criminals or foreign enemies are the objects of their legislation. Would any one of us like to go back to the bar barism of that time when Charles Wesley wrote a note to the celebrated and excellent John Fletcher, the Vicar of Madeley, in 1776? We were then trying to keep the empire together, and neglecting this great work at home. He says : — 'A fortnight ago I preached a con demned sermon to about twenty criminals, and every one of them, I had good grounds to believe, died penitent. Twenty more must die next week.' And there were then occasions on which twenty were hanged, not one of whom had been convicted of the crime of murder. Have we not from that time made great and salutary and satisfactory advances in this question ? Is there any man who wants to turn back to the barbarism of that day? But if you turn back to the Secretaries of State of that day, or to the Judges of that day, or even to the Bishops of that day, you will find that they had just the same sort of arguments in favour of the bar barism in which they were then con cerned that the right hon. Gentleman, I suppose forced by the necessities of his office, has offered to the House to-night. I confess I wonder that all the right hon. Gentleman has gone through in these painful cases has not almost driven him stark mad many times. I wonder that it has not driven him to the table of this House to propose, under the solemn feelings with which he must often have been impressed, that the House should take into con sideration whether this vast evil — as I believe it to be — might not be put an end to. Is the Englishman worse than every other man ? Is this nation worse than other nations ? Cannot the lenient laws practised with perfect safety in every other — not every other, but in many other of the nations of the world ¦ — be practised in this nation, and at the same time leave us perfectly secure — at least as much so as we are at pre sent? I say we may wash vengeance and blood from our code without diffi culty and without danger. The right hon. Gentleman is willing to appoint a Commission — he prefers it to a Committee, and I will not contest the point with him if the Commission be a fair Commission ; but I should not like to see it a Commission of Judges. I do not wish to speak disrespectfully of Judges. I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said, that with the exception of a case or two, perhaps, in one's lifetime, we notice nothing on the bench but that which is honourable to the Judges of this countiy ; and I would say that the Judges of this country may be compared with advantage probably with the Judges of any other country. But Judges are but men. Several of 5i° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. them, as a proof of that, have been Members of this House. And I am free to confess that the feelings I had when I was a schoolboy at York, and first went to an Assize trial, and saw a venerable old gentleman on the bench, and in his wig, were those of utter awe and astonishment; but those feelings have been considerably modified by my .experience of many of the present Judges when they were Members of this House. But we know that Judges are like other men in this — they have trod den a certain path which has led them to the honourable position which they hold. They are there, not to make law, but to administer it ; and they are disposed to adhere to the law, as they have studied it and administered it. Some of them are not desirous, perhaps, to express an opinion, like the noble Lord the father of the hon. and learned Member for Tiverton (Mr. Denman). They are strongly attached to that system which they have been adminis tering ; and, as I said at the beginning of the observations I have offered to the House, they have been in all past times — not all of them, but a majority of them — generally opposed to the amelio ration of our Criminal Code. Although, therefore, I believe that at this moment there are more Judges on the bench who are in favour of the abolition of capital punishment, yet I should not like the right hon. Gentle man to leave the inquiiy into this ques tion entirely or even to a majority of the members of the bench. There is no reason to believe that a Judge is more competent to give an opinion on this question than any other intelligent, edu cated, and observing man ; nor would I admit that the right hon. Gentleman himself, who is in his person the whole bench of Judges, is more capable of giving an opinion than any other Mem ber of this House who has paid long and careful -attention to this subject. Therefore, I hope that if the right hon. Gentleman does appoint a Commission he will put upon it — I do not say men who have not an opinion on one side or the other, for men who have no opinion at all are not likely to give any worth hearing — but men in whom the House and the countiy, and those in the House who are against capital punishment, may have confidence, feeling that they will take evidence from every source whence it could be fairly offered to them, and that they will give to the House and the Government a fair opinion on that evidence in their report. If that be done, I am quite certain that the result will be a great improve ment of the law, although it may not carry it to the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries has so long desired to carry it. But I should be very thankful if so much is \ accomplished ; and if ever we come to ' that point, I have confidence too that even you Gentlemen opposite, who are so very timid, always fancying that the ice is going to break under you, will be induced to go further than you seem inclined to do now; and perhaps the ten or twelve wretched men who are now hanged annuady may be brought down to three or four, and at last we may come unanimously to the opinion, that the security of public or private life in England does not depend upon the public strangling of three or four poor wretches every year. This Parlia ment is about to expire, I suppose, before very long — though some say it is to endure during another session ; I should be glad indeed if it might be said of this Parliament at some future time, that it had dared to act upon the true lessons, and not upon the supersti tions of the past ; and that it might be declared to be the Parliament which destroyed the scaffold and the gallows, in order that it might teach the people that human life is sacred, and that on that principle alone can human life be secured. THE PERMISSIVE BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 8, 1864. From Hansard. [The ' Permissive Bill ' was a measure introduced by some of the friends of Temperance, to enable a certain proportion of the population of a parish, by vote, to shut up Public- houses, and to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors within the parish.] I think my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Lawson) has at least no reason to complain of the manner in which the House has listened to the statement which he has made on behalf of his clients throughout the country. The House has listened to his speech in a manner which proves that this is a question which is getting more hold of the mind of the countiy than it had some time ago, and that it cannot be treated as the vision of a few wild en thusiasts. Everybody will agree that the evil which the hon. Member has to some extent explained is a very grievous one in almost every part of the country ; and more — I believe every Member will say that if any measures could be taken that did not violate any of the recog nised principles on which this House acts, to help those who are making great exertions to change the people of this countiy from their past and, I fear, their present condition into a happier state, such measures ought to be sanc tioned. I believe there are only two modes of remedy; the first of which is the im provement and instruction of the people, and the second, the special legislation of this House. I am one of those who look rather to the improvement and education of the people for a permanent remedy — and I think that it is quite conclusive that this must be the sheet- anchor, as it were, of this question. There are hon. Members of this House older than I am, but I am old enough to remember when among those classes with which we are more familiar than with the working-people, drunkenness was ten or twenty times more common than it is at present. I have been in this House twenty years, and during that time I have often partaken of the hospitality of various Members of the House, and I may assert that during the whole of those twenty years I have no recollection of having seen one single person at any gentleman's table who has been in the condition which would be at all fairly described by saying that he was drank. And I may say more — that I do not recollect more than two or three occasions during that time in which I have observed, by the thickness of utterance, rapidity of talk ing, or perhaps a somewhat recklessness of conversation, that any gentleman had taken so much as to impair his judg- 512 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 8, ment. That is not the state of things which prevailed in this country fifty or sixty years ago. We know, therefore, as respects this class of persons, who can always obtain as much of these pernicious articles as they desire to have, because price to them is no object, that temperance has made great way, and if it were possible now to make all classes in this country as temperate as those of whom I have just spoken, we should be amongst the very soberest nations of the earth. But it may be said after all this, that there is something still to be done by special legislation — and I am not dis posed' to contradict that ; and if any Member were to contradict it, it would be going in the face of experience, and certainly in the face of the opinion which has been universally held by this House. All our legislation on this question has been special. My hon. Friend says he thinks no one would dare to propose to make the sale of intoxicating drinks free — as free for example as the sale of bread, potatoes, or any of the articles of ordinary consumption. If we re quired no taxes, I do not know how we should treat this question ; but, requiring taxes as we do, it has been thought in this country, and I suspect in most other countries too — certainly in many — that there is nothing upon which taxes can be levied with greater advan tage (if I may use the term ' advantage ' in connection with the levying of any taxes) as upon articles of an intoxicating quality. But having levied these taxes, and finding the consumption is large, the Government finds it also necessary to provide certain superintendence by the police ; because, unfortunately, wherever the sale of these articles is considerable, there is found to be a state of things which is not favourable to obedience to the law, and which magistrates, policemen, and the law are called in to avert and prevent. We have this special legislation now, and my hon. Friend says that not less than four hundred Acts of Parliament dealing with this question have been before the House : not all of them with a view of preventing the consumption of intoxicating liquors, but all showing what a constant and incessant attention Parliament has been obliged to pay to this subject. Now we come to the system as we find it, and ask ourselves, Can anything more be done? Under the present system, if a man wishes to sell beer only, he gets six of his neigh bours to sign a recommendation that he is a suitable and respectable man. I believe also the rent of his house has something to do with it, as indi cating that he is a man not absolutely without means and character. But if he wishes to sell wine and spirits he must ask the magistrates for a licence, and the licence is renewable from year to year. I think it may be generally said that this system is not satisfactory to people throughout the country. There are many magistrates who condemn the system of which they are a part ; and in many towns it is said — and I think upon inquiry we should find it to be true — that the magistrates give licences too freely ; and men who live in quiet streets of a town are angry with the magis trates for giving licences to houses which are not needed. We also find that there is a great diversity of action, for in some villages, towns, and districts, public houses are much more numerous than in others; and at the same time there is a complaint that in giving licences for the sale of beer the recom mendation of six benevolent neighbours is given more through kindness to the applicant than kindness to the great bulk of the neighbourhood. In some cases the number of beer-houses has been unnecessarily and mischievously increased. And now what does my hon. Friend propose ? He proposes something that is entirely distinct, and to some extent a revolutionary measure, with regard to this system. He proposes that two- thirds of the rate-payers of any district, parish, or town shall have the power to decide the whole of this question ; and I think when the hon. Gentleman stated 1864. THE PERMISSIVE BILL. 513 that proposal, an hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House, and an hon. Gentleman sitting near me, made ges tures as if they thought the rate-payers did not represent the working-classes. But the working-classes are rate-payers in a larger number than any other class, for they are generally married and have families, and live in houses that pay taxes; and therefore if you take the opinion of the rate-payers of this country on any question, you take in as clear a manner as possible the opinion of the people of the countiy. Well, my hon. Friend proposes that two-thirds shall decide; — but decide what? By this Bill, they are to decide first of all whether any new licences shall be granted in the district to which the vote applies — that is, whether this Act shall be in force in the district — and they are to decide further whether any of the persons now licensed shall have those licences renewed at the expiration of the present year. ['No, no!' ' Hear, hear !'] That is what I understand by the Bill. I believe all licences are merely granted for seding drink from year to year. I think it was one of the state ments of the licensed victuallers that the magistrates had the absolute control over them, and that there was no appeal from their decision, and every year they could refuse to renew any licences if they thought fit. It will thus be seen that my hon. Friend proposes a Bill which affects some scores of thousands of persons and some millions of pro perty, the measure which he proposes being entirely different, I think, from anything which has ever been proposed or sanctioned by the House with regard to any other description of property or any other interest. Therefore, however sanguine I may be as to what I must cad the violent success of his measure, and however desirous I may be to cany out his object, I do not think it likely that the House of Commons will con sent to such a proposition as that. What is meant by the representative system is not that you should have the vote of thousands of persons taken upon a particular question of legislation, but that you should have men selected from those thousands having the confidence of the majority of the thousands, and that they should meet and should discuss ques tions for legislation, and should decide what measures should be enacted ; and therefore in this particular question I should object altogether to disposing of the interest of a great many men, and of a great many families, and of a great amount of property — I should object altogether to atiow such a matter to be decided by the vote of two-thirds of the rate-payers of any parish or town. By this Bill they would have the power to shut up at once, or rather at the end of the cunent year, as far as the sale of these articles is concerned, every hotel, inn, public-house, and beer-shop . throughout the countiy. I say through out the country, but of course I allude to such subdivisions of the country as the Bill may indicate. There would of course be a difference, for some parishes would shut them up, and some would not ; but that is not very much an argu ment against the Bill. But there might be, and I think there would be, in all probability, sudden, capricious, and un just action under this Bill, which would have a very unfortunate effect upon the interests of those immediately concerned; and I think it might also create through out the country violent discussions on the question, and I am afraid might even produce a great and pernicious re action against the very honest and good objects which my hon. Friend desires to carry out. For that reason, as a Member of this House, representing a very large constituency, and having my sympathies entirely with those who are endeavouring to promote temperance amongst the people, and after much consideration on this subject, I have never yet seen my way at all to give a vote which would tend to pass a mea sure such as that now proposed to the House. But then if there be persons who think that the sale of these articles is in itself absolutely evd and immoral — and I did 33 5H SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. JUNE 8, not understand my hon. Friend to hold that opinion, or to have stated it to the House — but if there be persons of that opinion, they, of course, will not be influenced by any arguments of mine. I do not hold that opinion — and I think the friends of temperance through out this country make a great mistake when they argue their cause on that ground. There is abundant ground on which to argue this question on which no man can assail or controvert them, and it is unfortunate for a great and good cause that any of its enthusiastic but illogical advocates should select arguments which cannot fairly be sus tained. Now, the question comes, if this Bill were disposed of, — is there nothing which the House could do to meet the growing opinion in many parts of the country that public-houses and beer- shops are often established with per nicious influence upon the district, and in far greater numbers than the fair wants of the people demand ? I bring no charge against the magistrates. So far as I have seen, with some few ex ceptions of which we have heard, they perform their duty, and a disagreeable duty it is, as well as any body of men to whom you could intrust it. With regard to the householders, they are very likely to give recommendations with more regard to the persons them selves than to the wants of the public. Judging from the evidence brought be fore the committees of this House, it must be admitted that public opinion does not entirely agree with the mode which is at present in existence for the granting of licences, whether they be for public-houses or beer-houses; and looking at the course which the Govern ment has taken — I do not mean this Government in particular, but the course Parliament has taken in past times — I do not see any reason why the public opinion of every city, town, and district should not have something to say with regard to this matter. Some time ago, when I was down at Birmingham, a large number of persons connected with this question had an interview with me and my hon. Col league. We had a long discussion on the question, and I explained to them what I now wish to explain to the House — that although objecting to the Bill on the grounds which I have stated, yet it does appear to me that the' House might proceed a step further than it has already done, and intrust to the ordinary local governing bodies of the cities, towns, and boroughs throughout the kingdom the decision of this question, with regard to the opening of public- houses and beer-shops, and the granting of licences within the limits of their jurisdiction. You cannot put this power into the hands of the Secretary of State or the Lord Chancellor, as you do the appointment of magistrates; and you cannot remove it from twenty magis trates and put it into the hands of some half-dozen men in the same neighbour hood. You can make no change from where you are, unless you intrust to the municipal council, or some committee of the municipal councd, in the various boroughs, the power of determining the number of licences for the sale of wine and spirits or beer. If you were to intrust it to the Coun cil, instead of to the full vote of the rate-payers, as proposed by the Bill, I think you would avoid everything like a sudden and violent interference with property, and you would also avoid the capricious action which might take place if two-thirds of the rate-payers were to judge this question, and you would give to the whole body of the rate-payers through their representa tives in their municipal councils, the determination of a question which every day is becoming more important with the great masses of the people of this country. I know no proposal which could be made from the point where we now stand to the point of the Bill of my hon. Friend except the one which I have suggested. Generally, the muni cipal councils in this countiy perform their duties with admirable success, and there is no Bill passed in this centuiy i864. THE PERMISSIVE BILL. 515 which has been more successful than the one which the House passed to reform the coiporations. If they had this further power, I think it would add to their influence and dignity; and, in all probability, the opinions of the people would be fairly carried out in reference to this question. But there is another question. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may say that this could not be done in the raral districts, where there are no corporations, and therefore my suggestion could not apply. But I think if it were attempted in the towns, and it was found more advantageous and successful than the present system, something could be found before long to extend the new system to the agri cultural districts as well : but if that should be found impracticable, it is no reason for debarring the towns from the benefit. I should not have brought such a question as this before the House, and 1 am not so sanguine of the result of these changes as what I may call the Temperance party in this House. I have not that faith in any act of the Legislature on this subject which my hon. Friend has. I believe in the effects of the instruction of the people, and of the improvement which is gradually taking place amongst them. I think that drunkenness is not on the increase, but rather is declining ; and I hope, whether the law be altered or not, we shall find our working-classes becoming more and more sober than in past times. But as I have on many occa sions been before the public favouring the efforts of the advocates of temper ance, I have felt bound to state the reasons why I cannot give my vote in favour of this Bill, and to suggest what the House might do by way of giving to the people through their municipal councils control over this question. By doing this you might promote temper ance among the people, and at the same time avoid a great and manifest injus tice to thousands of persons now en gaged in this trade, whose property would be rendered uncertain if not alto gether destroyed if the Bill of the hon. Gentleman should receive the sanction of the House. 33- ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAY 12, 1851. From Hansard. [The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was a measure to prohibit Catholic Bishops from assuming any title from any place or territory within the United Kingdom. A Papal Edict had recently created an Archbishop of Westminster, and this caused a ferment or panic in the country, which was much stimulated by a letter from Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister, to the Bishop of Durham. The Bill passed by large majorities, but it has been wholly ineffectual, is now obsolete, and will probably shortly be repealed.] I am exceedingly glad that the dis cussion has taken the turn which it has now assumed ; for as the proposition before the House is that the Speaker should leave the Chair, this appears to me a very fitting time to discuss the principle of the Bill, and the propriety of taking any further steps with regard to it. I was much struck with an ob servation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon in a former de bate, that it is an extremely dangerous thing for a Government to be legislating upon the idea that it is forced to do some thing with regard to a particular ques tion, without knowing either exactly what it has to do, or how it ought to do it. There is great practical wisdom in that observation. I will turn back to some of the pro ceedings connected with this question. The noble Lord at the head of the Go vernment commenced the fray by his celebrated letter ; and any stranger to the country who read that letter must have come to the conclusion' that some great outrage had been committed. Within a week after the publication of that letter, the noble Lord, the chief officers of the Crown, and some of the principal Judges, including the Lord High Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench, assembled round the festive board of the chief magistrate of the City of London ; and there language was used which, to say the least, should not have been employed by sedate and learned men accustomed to administer justice, whether it was used in seriousness or in joke. I must here remark, however, that I am not at all astonished at anything which takes place in connection with such a question at the Mansion House of the City of London, for, if I am not misinformed, the Mansion House was built out of fines extorted from Non jurors, from Protestant Dissenters, and, to a large extent, from the society of which I am a member, between the passing of the Act of Uniformity and MAY 12, 185I. ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 517 the passing of the Act of Toleration. There is another curious fact connected with that building. One hundred and ten years ago, when a proposition was made to build it, the Earl of Burlington of that day presented to the Common Councd an admirable design by an Italian architect ; but the architect be ing an Italian, and his name, ' Palladio,' possibly suggesting Rome, his design, which was the best offered, was rejected by the Corporation, though he had been dead 150 years. I have observed almost all' that has appeared in the papers during the agi tation of this question, and I have no hesitation in saying that as yet there has been no logical definition of the injury that has been inflicted on this countiy, and no agreement as to any remedy which Parliament could provide. I may say the same for the leading articles in the newspapers, from the Times down to the humblest country paper. Not one has proposed an in telligible remedy for the grievance. Certain specifics, indeed, have been pro posed out of doors ; but the noble Lord has not been so imprudent as to accept them. The celebrated Dr. Cumming, among the rest, proposed that Cardinal Wiseman should be packed off to Italy in a man-of-war, with Admiral Har- court as commander. The choice was perhaps happy, because Admiral Har- court is the son of a man who, while a bishop -in the dominant Church, received no less than three quarters of a million of money ; and therefore it is no wonder that his son should be hostile to any rival in so profitable a calling. I will not allude particularly to the speeches made by certain distinguished individuals, to the burnings in effigy or to the threats of serving Cardinal Wise man as a certain Austrian general has been served. I give the noble Lord credit for being too wise to follow such counsel. But after the noble Lord wrote his celebrated letter, he has had three months for quiet deliberation, whether in Downing-street or Windsor; and at the end of that three months we have the noble Lord's speech, which is not about the Papal rescript, the real matter in hand, but about various mat ters that have occurred on the other side of the Channel. The noble Lord is now conscious of the difficulty, and cannot withdraw Ireland without over throwing the whole speech upon which his legislation is founded. , The noble Lord objects to the synod of Thurles. I do not wish to see such synods, or anything else which inter feres with education ; but if the two Churches are compared, we must be driven to the conclusion that the Pro testant bishops and clergy are quite as meddlesome in politics as the Catholics, and more especially upon this very question of national education. I have, while in the south of Ireland, spoken to a gentleman who is a county magistrate and a chairman of a board of guardians, and that gentleman has said that the Established clergy have committed a great mistake in so universally rejecting the national schools, as they have by such conduct thrown them wholly into the hands of the priests. We should not then judge too harshly of the synod of Thurles for taking a different view of education from them, more especially as at that synod the votes were equally divided, which is more than could be said of the Established clergy either in Ireland or in England. But the noble Lord wdl have no bishops but his own bishops, of whom he is by turns the tyrant and the vassal ; while the bishops of Ireland, in whom the people have confidence, are not to have any opinion on this question of education, or, if they have, they are not to express it. But the noble Lord has not been able clearly to define the matter upon which he is going to legislate. He has had to cite a great number of Acts, to garnish with references to histoiy and menaces from other countries, and to make up what lawyers call a cumulative case, in order to establish even the slightest reason for legislation. The noble Lord admits that the law has not been broken; he cannot cite 5i8 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. MAY 12, any instance in which the Catholic bishops of Ireland have broken the law. I thought that the noble Lord was going to admit that as the law has not been broken, no offence has been com mitted, instead of which he is about to ask for a stringent law to put down an offence which has never been committed. There is one point on which the law has been broken, and that is in the im portation of the Bull; but with that offence the noble Lord will not inter fere. The language of the Pope is complained of as offensive ; but have priests in power ever used any other ? The language is offensive — such lan guage as might have been used by Hildebrand, and very like what is used in our own legal documents. I recollect a charge of libel being brought against an unfortunate newspaper editor, in which he was charged with every ima ginable offence ; but that was the mere formal wording of the legal document. So it is with the language of the Pope. Offensive, aggressive it is — such as I despise and loathe ; it is rather a form than a substance — but it is not a justifi cation for the present attempt at legis lation. But the noble Lord says that there is an attack by a foreign Power on the supremacy of the Crown. The hon. Member for Oldham has truly ob served that the Pope's being a temporal power is merely an accident. The Pope is a priest, and it happens unfortu nately that he is also a temporal prince; but if he were at Avignon, or Naples, or Brazil, or even in the town of Gal way, still he would be Pope and priest, and would have precisely the same power over the Catholic world as he has at present. The supremacy of the Queen is, in the sense used by the noble Lord, no better than a fiction. There might have been such a supremacy down to the times of James II, but now there is no supremacy but that of the three estates of the realm, and the supre macy of the law. The Queen is the chief of the Established Church; but that Church has not been assailed either in its wealth or power. The Queen has not the power of making Roman Ca tholic bishops, and therefore the making of them by the only Power on earth that has authority to make them, is no invasion of the prerogative of the Crown. The noble Lord says that the Pope has ignored the Established Church of this country, and has abolished the see of Canterbury. But the Pope has always done so ; he looks upon the Church of England as an usurping Church, pretty much as the Church of England looks upon congregations of Dissenters. Does not that Church, when appealing to the House on the plea of religious destitution, reckon up the population in a district, and the number of Church sittings, without taking into account the number of dissenting teachers, or of dissenting places of worship? It is thus that one Church always treats another ; and it is one of the unfortunate proofs that, so much as we have of Churches and of religions, the trae spirit of Christianity has made very little way amongst the Churches of the world. I am not one of those who think there is any strength in the argument which is used so often, that bishops in ordinary are not neces sary for the effectual working of the Roman Catholic Church. I am no friend to the bishops of any Church. But my individual opinion has nothing whatever to do with legislation on this question. I am not so presumptuous as to say to another Church that bishops are not necessary for that Church ; and if bishops are necessary for the Anglican Church, who can say they are not neces sary for the Church of Rome ? We have heard much of the changing of vicars-apostolic to bishops in ordinary, and I wish on this subject to read an extract from a letter which I have re ceived from a constituent who is a learned ecclesiastic of the Romish Church. I believe that in that letter it is conclusively urged that the change from vicars-apostolic to bishops in ordi nary went far to free the bishops from the arbitrary supremacy of the Pope, and to place them under the control of 1851. ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 519 a regularly- organised code of laws. My correspondent says that the principal argument against the bishoprics was founded on the assumption that the bishops would be more under the con trol of the Pope than the vicars-apo stolic. That is wholly erroneous. The bishop exercises his authority in virtue of his office, while the vicar-apostolic acts as the mere delegate of the Pope, who is the immediate bishop of the district. In both cases the territory is marked out. In one case it is called a diocese, and in the other a district, and in both cases the Pope confers the jurisdiction. In both cases the juris diction extends to all who belong to the Church, which includes, in the esti mation of the Church, all baptized per sons; but it is not to be exercised except over those who choose to submit to it. In the case of the bishops, they are governed by laws regularly enacted ; while the vicars-apostolic are controlled solely by the will of the Pope, who exercises as much power as he thinks proper. The difference is this, a vicar- apostolic is alone responsible to the Pope and to his will, whatever it might determine ; but when a bishop in ordi nary is appointed, he is relieved from the caprice — if I may say so — of the Pope, and is subject alone to those por tions of the canon law that can be exercised in any country in accordance with the permission of the civil law of that country. It is asserted that the Roman Catholics of this country have suffered no grievance in being driven back again to the rule of vicars-apo stolic. I beg to ask the people of this country, whether they would prefer to live under the ordinary constitution of the countiy, administered by its recog nised tribunals, or under some special commission, with some exceptional state of the law, where liberty may be less secure than under the ordinary and re cognised law of the State? I do not intend quoting further from the docu ment I hold in my hand ; but I think it only fairness to the gentleman who sent it that I should make use of it to this extent. I maintain that the course that has been taken in making these bishops in ordinary of vicars-apostolic is calcu lated to relieve the Roman Catholics in England from much of that ultramon tane influence of which the House has heard so much : for if the bishops are natives here, and appointed with the consent of those over, whom they will subsequently exercise control, it is rea sonable to suppose that the Roman Catholic Church will become more national in character, than when ruled over by the Pope and the statutes of his council. The noble Lord has designated the proceeding as an insult to the Crown, ahd an attack on the independence of the nation. I wish he could get rid of the silly and groundless fears he entertains on these points. To talk of this nation, its Crown and independence, being menaced by a petty sovereign or prince at Rome, is really too ludicrous. If England had not concurred in the in vasion of Rome by the French, that temporal prince, the Pope, would pro bably be now no prince, there would be a republic established at Rome, and, perhaps, the religious separated from the political power for ever. But the countiy is misled by these phrases, ' which are so misused by the noble Lord the First Minister of the Crown. ' A foreign power has endangered the supre macy of the Crown, and attacked the independence of the country.' The whole matter is one of idea, of senti ment, of such fine material that it is impossible for an Act of Parliament to grapple with the case before us. I admit the insult and offensiveness of the lan guage — it is repulsive to our feelings that such language should be employed. But, admitting all that, I am at a loss to discover how legislation can affect the question beneficially at all. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) has told us that this Bill will meet the emer gency, and no more. I think the noble Lord is wise and prudent in not making it more stringent than it is. Of course the noble Lord consulted the law officers 520 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT.^ of the Crown. It is well known that he consulted the bishops ; and I doubt not he consulted the noble Earl who fills the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The noble Lord informs the House that the Bill will meet the emergency, and that he has proposed nothing that is not required for the precise evil com plained of; and yet, within a few days after its first appearance, three-fourths of the Bill are given up. After three months of discussion and consultation with all these able and learned and pious men, with whom the noble Lord has been conferring, he admits that he knows nothing of the nature of his own Bill ; and upon the occasion of the second reading, consequently withdraws three-fourths of it. I then argued that the noble Lord did not know where he was hit, or the remedy for the wound of which he complained; and the fact of the withdrawal of three-fourths of the measure supports my argument. The noble Lord has retained the clause for bidding the assumption of titles. Well, assuming titles will be illegal. by the Bill, what is the result ? At present the assumption is not legal, and titles as sumed by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics are looked upon as mere matters of courtesy, which give no status, or rank, or precedence over any other subject of the realm. But in any case the Roman Catholics only will submit to the autho rities of these dignitaries — no matter whether bishops, cardinals, or arch bishops. But is there no effect produced by the Bill? Already the noble Lord has thrown over the Protestant feeling of the country, the sentiments of the Cum- mings, the M'Neiles, and the Stowells. It is not a question of Protestantism at present; it is a question of politics. I beg to ask the noble Lord, then, as a question of politics, who is injured by the Bill? The noble Lord does not touch the Pope. I believe the Pope acted very foolishly, and that Cardinal Wiseman also acted foolishly ; but both will go unscathed. The trae sufferers will be the wearer of the Crown, and , the millions of subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion. Look at the speeches, the writings, and the denun ciations of the last six months. Is it possible that all these could have oc curred in the United Kingdom without producing a permanent evil as regards the harmony and the well-being and strength of the nation ? Then take Ire land alone. There has been a great gulf heretofore existing between Eng land and Ireland, a gulf created by past legislation. The noble Lord has helped to widen and deepen that gulf, and there is now a more marked separation between the countries than has existed at any period in the last twenty years. We have by our legislation taught 8,000,000 of our fellow-subjects that their priests are hated by the British Legislature, and that they themselves are treated with disrespect, and their loyalty denied by this House and the leading Minister of the countiy. That is an evil of great magnitude, and one which we are bound to take into con sideration. We were informed not long since that at the Thurles synod, half the prelates assembled were in favour of the col leges, and the other half against them. I doubt not, if a second synod were to take place, there will be an unanimous feeling against them. The ndble Lord heretofore had a party amongst the ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome: but he has destroyed that party by his policy, and rendered them unanimous against the Protestant Government of that country. I ask any Gentleman here, not a Roman Catholic, what would be the effect of the recent proceedings on him if he were a member' of that Church ? Does the House suppose there is a Roman Catholic fanrily in the empire, when assembled round the hearth, that does not entertain a greater reverence for the Pope now, than be fore these mischievous proceedings com menced? And does it not stand to reason that the missionaiy agencies of that Church, scattered over the kingdom I85i. ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 521 for the conversion of Protestants, will take fresh hope from the paroxysm of terror and alarm into which the Pro testants of England have thrown them selves? The apostles overthrew the Pagan worship of Rome; Luther, single- handed, wrested whole empires from the Pope ; whilst here is a Church, endowed with millions, and having 15,000 learned clergymen for its guidance and control, thrown into a paroxysm of tenor, and all that by a Church which, in these realms, has not the thousandth part of the advantages possessed by its oppo nents. I wish the noble Lord had told the House where the gain lies. Is it in the Preamble of the Bill, which refers to the inviolable character of the Established Church in Ireland ? Every one is aware that the Established Church in Ireland is not worth one good man raising his voice in its support ; and the noble Lord well knows that it only waits the lifting of his own finger to ensure such a ma jority in that House as would suppress by Act of Parliament that Church for ever, notwithstanding its inviolable cha racter. Is it as a matter of gratifica tion to the ministers of the Established Church that the noble Lord introduced the measure — a matter of strife and ri valry between the Bishop of St. James's- square and the Archbishop of Golden- square? Is one to be suppressed for the satisfaction of the other ? In such a case, there will be no great gain to the people, to political freedom, or to the Christianity of this countiy in sup pressing one ecclesiastic, and conferring domination and power on the other. In my opinion the noble Lord has made a great mistake. In the first place, he wrote a letter to the Bishop of Durham, and then consulted with the Bishop of London. A more unsafe man than the Bishop of London he could not have selected. Look at his character. He is an amphibious creature, reported by one to be a Puseyite, whilst another says he is on the high road to Rome. I am sorry to hear the amount of abuse that is lavished upon him ; and yet the noble Lord 'rejoiced that he had the consent of that prelate.' That eccle siastic, with twenty thousand excellent consolations, shed tears in presence of a deputation that waited on him. But doubtless they resembled the tears shed by the Syrian monk, who declared, ac cording to the historian, that ' tears were as natural to him as perspiration.' How ever, it would appear that the said monk was less wise than the Bishop of Lon don in one respect, for another historian relates of him that he feigned insanity that he might escape being made a bishop. It is evident that the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government is in a quagmire, and he knows it well. It would be far better for the interests of the Crown, of the Kingdom, of this House, and of Christianity, if the Bill were withdrawn, instead of being pro ceeded with. There is no one in favour of the Bill except the noble Lord him self, for not one of his colleagues has really made a good fight for it. The Government supporters disagree; and even the law officers of the Crown give different accounts of the measure. The hon. Member for Midhurst made an excellent speech, not in favour of the Bill, but against Papal aggression ; apd concluded his speech with a request, that he should be permitted to substi tute a new preamble and new clauses, which he was perfectly ready and willing to do. I doubt not when we go into Committee the hon. Gentleman will sub mit those clauses. But the Bill of the noble Lord is repudiated by all classes ; and the press also repudiates it. It is well understood that the noble Lord is practising a cheat, a delusion on the people of England. The people have been clamouring for a resistance to the aggression of the Pope, but not for such resistance as this measure affords. They expect something that will be felt ; but not the pretence of a measure, which, whilst it insults Roman Catholics, offers no defence to Protestants. There is another remarkable point in this matter. I do not find any of the 522 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. holy men of this House in favour of the Bill — men who are really attached to the Church of England. The hon. Members for Oxford University, for Kent, for Midhurst, not overlooking the Solicitor-General, — not one of them is to be found struggling in favour of the Bill. It has been said ' Multae terri- colis linguae, ccelestibus una.' But it does not appear that the celestials in this House are more agreed about the matter than any of those who feel little regard for Protestantism or Catholicism. If the noble Lord cannot show a united Cabinet or party — if out of doors no body is in favour of the Bill, and the press is almost unanimously against it — it is a fair ground for asking the House to proceed no further with the measure. If legislation be necessary at all, let it be substantial and to the purpose ; if we are to obey the clamour out of doors, let us satisfy it by some substantial measure of legislation. It is said that there is a cry out. of doors for a disso lution of Parliament, and I rather think some hon. Members are afraid of that. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Brotherton) has said that I and my Colleague do not speak the senti ments of our constituents ; but, at least, we speak our sincere conviction. A reverend gentleman (the Rev. Hugh Stowed), one of the constituents of the hon. Member for Salford, whose Pro testantism seems to be vituperation, and whose Christian charity clamour, has thanked God that he is represented by the hon. Member for Salford. I am sure my hon. Friend must feel it humili ating to be patronised' in such a manner. But I will admit that many Members act in a manner opposed to the senti ments of a large number of their con stituents. What of that? If there be any truth in the representative system, the 656 men returned to this House may be considered as of the foremost men of the countiy. It is not their duty to be the victims, subjects, and tools of a cry, but manfully and boldly to with stand it, if they believe it to be a hollow one. Of course, this language will not apply to hon. Members who conscien tiously differ from me on this question ; but they must be very blind who do not know that the force of this cry, for which the noble Lord is largely responsible, is one not a few Members are disposed to yield to. We ought to resist the cry, to stem the torrent ; and it will be in finitely more honourable to go home to our avocations, if we have any, and abandon public life for ever, in defence of principles we have always held to be true, rather than be instruments of a cry to create discord between the Irish and English nations, and to perpetuate ani mosities which the last twenty-five years have done much to lessen. We are here to legislate calmly and de liberately, without reference to the pas sions and contending factions that may rage out of doors ; we are in a position to see that the course in which the noble Lord has been so recklessly drag ging us is fruitful in discord, hatred, religious animosities — that it has sepa rated Ireland from this country, has withdrawn her national sympathies from us, and has done an amount of mischief which the legislation of the next ten years cannot entirely, if at all, abate. No one would have touched this Bill — certainly not the noble Lord — could he have foreseen all the difficulties that have arisen out of it. First of all, the Govemment has been broken up, though probably the noble Lord is patriotic enough to believe that tiiat is not a national calamity. But the business of Parliament has been stopped for half a session ; and we are not at the end of it yet ; the Speaker has not left the chair; we are only on the brink, and about to plunge in. An hon. Gentle man has a proposition, to be supported by a large number, for a measure infi nitely more stringent. The noble Lord will not carry his own measure but by the support of those who want one much more stringent. But they who want persecution will rather take a little than be entirely baffled. The noble Lord will not withdraw the Bill, because it will be humiliating to do so. But is iS5i. ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL. 523 it not very humiliating to go on with it ; to be legislating for no practical good result; to pass a measure which the noble Lord knows will not satisfy those to appease whose clamour it is pro posed, and which must produce the worst effects between England and Ire land? In 1829 a measure was passed — long delayed — which professed to give Roman Catholics all the liberty we our selves enjoy. I will stand upon that Act. It is far better to have faith in the population of this country, to bind them to the Legislature and the Crown by a generous and confiding treatment, than to proceed in such a course as the House is now invited to enter on. The noble Lord, I repeat, thinks there is great danger in this aggression of the Pope. How is there any danger ? The Pope can have no authority, except over the Catholics. It is said there are 8,000,000 in England and Ireland ; and should the number in England and Ire land increase to 20,000,000, there will be great danger of the Roman Catholic religion becoming the established reli gion of the country — should an Esta blished Church exist so long. There fore, the argument of danger supposes the conversion of the people ; for it is only by this means that the country can, to any considerable degree, come under the rule of the Pope. The noble Lord has drawn up an indictment against 8,000,000 of his countrymen ; he has increased the power of the Pope over the Roman Catholics, for he has drawn closer the bonds between them and their Church and the head of their Church. The noble Lord has quoted Queen Eliza beth and the great men of the Common wealth, as though it were necessary now to adopt the principles which prevailed almost universally two hundred years ago. Does the noble Lord forget that we are the true ancients, that we stand on the shoulders of our forefathers, and can see farther ? We have seen the working of these principles, and their result, and have concluded to abandon them. I have not touched on any matter purely religious ; this House is not the place for religious questions. But reflecting on the deep mysteries of religion, on my own doubts and frail ties, on the shortness of the present time, and on the awful and unknown future — I ask what am I that I should judge another in religious things, and condemn him to exclusion and perse cution? I fear not for the country on questions like this. England, with a united population — though the noble Lord has done much to disunite them — cares nothing for foreign potentates, be their combinations what they may. England, with her free press, her ad vancing civilisation, her daily and hourly progress in the arts, sciences, industry, and morals, will withstand any priestly attempts to subjugate the mind, and successfully resist any menaces, whether coming from Lambeth or from Rome. I am one of a sect which has invariably held the principles I now advocate, which has in past years suffered greatly from those principles which the noble Lord now wishes to introduce into our Legislature. I cannot do otherwise than raise my voice against such an attempt, and ask the noble Lord to proceed no further. ~^m~ ADMISSION OF JEWS TO PARLIAMENT. HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 15, 1853. From Hansard. Although this question has been dis cussed almost every session since I have had a seat in Parliament, I have never ventured to trouble the House with any observations upon it, and hoping, as I do most unfeignedly,' that this may be the very last occasion on which it may be necessary to discuss it, I will ask the attention of the House for a very few moments while I state the opinions which I entertain upon it. I was once asked by an hon. Member on that (the Opposition) side of the House why I had not spoken upon the Jew Bill, and I gave him a candid answer. I told him that I had never heard anything in the shape of a fact or argument from the opponents of this measure, which, like facts and arguments on a great many questions which come before us, could be fairly grappled with, and which a man could undertake to lay hold of in the hope of answering it. I told him further, that it appeared to me that the opponents of this measure were actuated, I believed very honestly, by what was rather a sentiment than anything else ; and the hon. Gentleman to whom I have alluded, not by any means one of the least distinguished amongst you, admitted that I was perfectly right, and that it was more a sentiment than any thing else. A sentiment is, of course, difficult to argue against. This sen timent has gradually sunk down into a phrase, and we understand now that what is meant by that phrase is that we, on this side, are about to unchristianise the House of Commons. Now I have endeavoured, in the course of these discussions, to trace whence this notion or feeling of un- christianising springs, and I think I can trace it backwards through the changes of the law, by which successive parties and sects, and sections of the people of this country, have, during the last 160 years, been admitted to full par ticipation in the rights of citizenship. The very same feeling, though it was called something else, was in operation when you excluded the Roman Catholics from Parliament. The very same feel ing under a somewhat different tide was in operation when the Unitarians were subjected to oppressive statutes ; and it was the very same spirit, however much you may attempt to disguise it, under which, previous to the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, the Dis senters of this country were excluded from municipal and other offices. It always seems to me to come from that appetite for supremacy which springs from the fact that we have had in this country a powerful and dominant april 15, 1853. ADMISSION OF JEWS TO PARLIAMENT. 525 Church, connected chiefly with a power ful ruling class, and that step by step the people of this country, one section after another, have wrested from that Church, and from that class, the rights of citizenship which ' we have claimed, and which we now enjoy. Now what can be more marvellous than that any sane man should propose that doctrinal differences in religion should be made the test of citizenship and political rights ? Doctrinal differ ences in religion, in all human proba bility, will last for many generations to come, and may possibly last so long as man shad inhabit this globe; but if you permit these differences to be the tests of citizenship, what is it but to admit into your system this fatal con clusion, that social and political differ ences in ad nations can never be era dicated, but must be eternal? The hon. Baronet the Member for the Uni versity of Oxford (Sir R. H. Inglis) may be taken probably for as honest and consistent a representative of the oppo nents of this Bill as can be found in this House. I should like to ask whe ther there is any difference between the hon. Baronet the Member for the Uni versity of Oxford and Baron Rothschild in any matter which can affect citizen ship or the duties of citizens, or in any thing whatsoever of which the laws of this country can justly take cognizance as relating to the actions of the subjects of the Crown. I have watched the hon. Baronet for many years with great admiration— not with admiration for the principles which he holds, but with ad miration for the manner in which he always maintains them. If all men who hold what I regard as sound principles in this House were to take the hon. Baronet for their model, sound prin ciples would march on much faster than they do. Take, for instance, what may be called the morality of politics, and you will find that the hon. Baronet draws nearly all his opinions from the very same source that Baron Rothschild draws his. We have discussed in this House the question of capital punishment. I find the hon. Baronet, with his accus tomed bland dignity, quoting against me with perfect confidence the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis ; and I have a strong suspicion that he takes his notions of the priesthood from the times of the book of Exodus. I think I have a distinct recollection that when the question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister was under discussion, the hon. Baronet referred the House with perfect confidence to the book of Levi ticus. The hon. Baronet too, I think, will not dispute that his law of tithes comes from the very same book. If it be a question of oaths, although it has been said by the highest authority, ' Ye have heard that it hath been said in old times, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thy vows,' the ' swear not at all' is disre garded, and the practice of the hon. Baronet — a practice approved by his Church, and approved, I presume, by a majority of this House — is precisely that which existed in the time of the Old Testament Scriptures. If the hon. Baronet does not defend the practice of war, yet I know writers who profess the same faith as the hon. Baronet who have defended the practice of war, because they say it was, if not inculcated, at least permitted, in the Old Testament. I cannot see, if the hon. Baronet takes his public morality from these writings, and if Baron Rothschild takes his from the same source, and if the question of citizenship be not a matter of doctrinal religion, but of the due performance of our duties to each other and to the State — I cannot see why the hon. Baronet should, for thirty or forty years, have sat in this House, and Baron Rothschild, elected by the first constituency of the kingdom, be shut out. It would be as reasonable for a man to quarrel with his own shadow, as for the hon. Baronet to quarrel with Baron Rothschild on these grounds. But what a ridiculous position the House is placed in I You have had not only Baron Roths child, but another Member of his per- 526 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 15, suasion at that bar, and, assuming he was a Christian, you allowed him to begin to take the oath upon the Old Testament. You made no objection to him until he came to the words ' on the trae faith of a Christian.' If the oath had been taken with the words ' on the faith of a Christian,' as you interpret them, on the Old Testament, it could not possibly be a legal oath. If it was necessary for a man who took an oath in a court of law to be a Christian, no Judge would allow an oath to be taken on the Old Testament; but would re quire it to be taken on the New Testa ment, because the book must be the symbol of the faith by which he affirmed. Well, you passed a Resolution that the seat for the City of London was full, and you put yourselves out of court with regard to the issuing of a new writ. If a man was an alien, and had been elected by a constituency, I presume that it would be competent for the House to appoint a Committee to examine into the petition charging him with being an alien, and upon the Report of the Com mittee that he was such, he would be excluded from the House, and a new writ would issue. But here you have no means of appointing a Committee for the purpose of interrogating Baron Rothschild as to whether he is a Jew or a Christian. He took one oath, and part of another. This House declared that the seat was full, and that a new writ for the City of London could not be issued ; and then this House ex cluded the Member who was elected from his seat. These facts lead me to the consider ation of a second question, of as great importance as the original question which we are now discussing. This question has been discussed and decided upon within a very recent period in a great many divisions in this House, not less, I believe, than fourteen times. Whether it was before or after dinner — whatever the circumstances under which we were assembled — there was always a very large majority in favour of this Bill, from twenty-six, at the lowest, to more than one hundred at the highest. I want to ask hon. Gentlemen opposite whether they think, after the House of Commons in two, if not three Parlia ments, within very recent years, has decided fourteen times in favour of the candidate elected by the City of Lon don, that it is constitutional, after these incessant and oft-repeated expressions of opinion on the part of the constituencies of this countiy, that this question should longer remain unsettled ? I am told there is an awful power in another place. I do not mean Lords Temporal so much as Lords Spiritual. I have no great opinion of Bishops in any case. But of all subjects, this is about the very last on which I should like to take the opinion of the Bishops of the Church of England. High titles, vast revenues, great power, conferred upon Christian ministers, are as without warrant to my mind in Scripture as in reason. I do not expect that they should be able to give an unbiassed, impartial judgment on a question like this. I understand that the noble Lord at the head of the Government — coming from the north may possibly account for it — is alarmed at the power of the Bishops. I would not suggest how it is to be over come ; but probably there are means by which the Government can procure the passing of this Bill through the other House of Parliament. Now, that ap pears to be a question of some impor tance. Though hon. Gentlemen oppo site have insisted on discussing this question, night after night, every ses sion, for years past, let us have the subject thoroughly probed, if this is to be the last night. The House of Commons has decided in favour of this Bill. Does any hon. Gentleman deny it? If the House of Commons represents the country, the country is in favour of this Bill. There is another estate of this realm, the most dignified of all, represented in this House by the Gentlemen who sit on that (the Ministerial) bench ; that estate of the realm unites cordially with the House of Commons and with the people in i853- ADMISSION OF JEWS TO PARLIAMENT: 527 this Bill. Fourteen times has this mea sure been carried by large majorities ; repeatedly has it been sent to the other House, and each time has it been re jected, and on some occasions rejected in a manner which seemed to indicate contempt. Now, I ask the noble Lord the Member for the City of London if there is any remedy in the Constitution for this state of things? The noble Lord had the opportunity of admitting the Jews by a Resolution of this House — he had a precedent of the most con clusive kind in the case of Mr. Pease — and although the law officers were not clear upon the law on that occasion, still the House of Commons, having once established a precedent of that nature, any person wishing to sustain the power of this House, and of one great branch of the Legislature, would have done wisely to have maintained the precedent, and to have relied on it in this case. The noble Lord preferred what he thought a more constitutional course, and he asks this House to pass Bills for the purpose. Year after year this House has passed this measure, and I ask the noble Lord whether he thinks we are to go on year after year bom barding the Lords with this Jew Bill, with no other result than that it should be sent down again? If the British Constitution affords no remedy for this state of things, it is not worth all the boasting which the noble Lord and others have heaped upon it. There are two remedies for this evil. The one is the creation of new Peers. [' Hear !'] Do not for a moment imagine that I should recommend it. I think the remedy might be worse than the dis ease ; but that is one of the remedies, as I understand it, which the Con stitution offers to the Crown in cases of this nature, provided the case be of sufficient magnitude. We know that this remedy has been threatened in our day, and threatened with some success. There is another remedy. Some Gen tlemen say, ' How can you expect the House of Lords to pass this Bill, when there is no ferment in the country?' I thought noblemen in that assembly were in an atmosphere so serene, that though disturbed occasionally by the contentions of prelates and the dispu tations of rival lawyers, they might be judged to be in that one place on the earth 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' But we are told there is no ferment in the country. I have seen ferments in this country, and many others have. I do not much admire them. I would rather see the Houses of Legislature, whether the one or the other, taking these questions up in a broad, philosophic, generous spirit, and discussing and set tling them in that spirit, than that they should wait until there is a ferment in the countiy approaching to confusion, and then surrender, upon terms that shall, be humiliating to them, prejudices which, if given up in time, might have been forgotten in the gratitude and the applause of their countrymen. It is assumed, and properly and wisely, that you will get no ferment up about the Jew Bill. I have no objection to admit that the Jews, not being great in num bers, and not free from some disadvan tage, consequent upon that prejudice so prevalent on the benches opposite, will give occasion to no ferment before which those benches will quail. ['Oh, oh!'] They will quail soon enough when there is a ferment. [' Oh, oh !'] If that is doubted, I refer you to the history of the last twenty-five years in proof of what I say. But I want no ferment. I want argument and sound principles of legislation to prevail within the Houses of Parliament, and not the fear of anything that may take place outside. But now comes the case of the noble Lord who leads the Government in this House. The noble Lord has worked at this Bill for many years ; he has in duced this House to abdicate the power which it possessed, by precedent, of admitting the Jews to this House by a Resolution of this House. He has re- 528 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. commended the constitutional course — a good course if it should succeed — but I think he is bound to take all the mea sures which are open to his Government for the purpose of ensuring the success of this Bill; and I claim it as one of those who have voted with him, I be lieve, on every occasion, and done all that I could for the purpose of securing the success of this measure. Now, if the Government would make up their minds that unless this Bill passes during this session they would treat a defeat in the House of Lords precisely as they would treat an important defeat in this House ; then no person could say here after that the noble Lord and his Col leagues did not make every effort they could be called on to make for the pur pose of passing this Bill. I cannot say whether there is any other remedy than the creation of Peers, and agitation out of doors ; but let it be a resolution on the part of the Government that this Bill shall pass — that they will make it a matter on which their existence, as a Government, shall be staked— and if it should not be passed, upon those per sons be the responsibility of forming a Government who shall prevent this mea sure of justice to the Jewish population of this country. I should have been glad if the noble Lord, with the great influence which he exercises in this House, had endeavoured to prevail on the House to abolish the whole system of oaths at the bar, and to have substituted some declaration which every honest man could take in an honest and conscientious spirit. These oaths are of no use — we know they are of no use; you make us affirm some thing that does not exist — and eveiy man who takes an oath at the table, which I am happy to say I have never done, knows he is performing a farce which is ludicrous. ['Oh, oh!'] The fact is, that you are called on to affirm that you will not do something which it is impossible for you to do. Let us, then, get rid of this question, which has been discussed and decided year after year ; and, above all, let us see that the Commons House of England is open to the Commons of England, and that every man, be his creed what it may, if elected by a constituency of his country men, may sit in this House, and vote on all matters which affect the legislation of this kingdom. -#§•<§#— THE GOVERNMENT SCHEME OF EDUCATION. HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 20, 1847. From Hansard. In rising to offer a few observations on this most interesting question, I am sensible that I have to defend men and principles which are not popular in this assembly. Nevertheless, being myself one of the Nonconformist body of this country, and being by birth, education, observation, and conviction, fully es tablished in the opinions I hold, I am bound, though it may be in opposition to a Government sitting on the same side of the House as myself, to protest against the policy and principles now offered for the adoption of the House. I listened with pleased attention to the speech of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh ; and I read with due respect that of the noble Lord at the head of the Govemment. I admit the ability of those speeches ; but there is nothing in which that ability is more displayed than in the skill with which they have evaded the question really in dispute between the Dissenting bodies and the Government by which this scheme of education is proposed. It is not the question before the House, in the scheme proposed, or in the Amend- ' ment moved by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Finsbury, whether the State has any right or power to interfere with education in this countiy ; it is not the question whether it is with secular education only that they have a right to interfere. The question is this : — what Minutes of Council are before us, what is their object, their tendency, and the effect they will produce upon the posi tion of the Established Church and the Dissenting bodies in the United Kingdom ? The right hon. Gentleman the Mem ber for Edinburgh spent three-fourths of the time he was on his legs in prov ing that the State has the power and the right, and that it is the duty of the State, to see to the education Of its sub jects. Judging from his speech, it was one of the simplest things imaginable ; the proposition appeared to be so clear that he was astonished any one should doubt it ; and with the right hon. Gentleman's opinions I was astonished he should take so much pains to enforce it. But if it be so clear a proposition that Govemment has the plain right to educate its subjects, it is somewhat ex traordinary that with all the eminent statesmen in this countiy for some generations past, there has never been 34 53° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 20, any bold and determined attempt to interfere with the education of the common people of England and Wales. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to me to prove too much. He tried to prove that it was the duty of the Govemment to educate the people ; but if it be the duty of Government to educate them, it must be the duty of the Government to enforce education. I do not know where the line can be drawn. If it be its solemn duty to afford opportunity for education, and to see that all the people are educated, it appears to me we must come inevitably to the conclusion, that Government has the power, and that it is also its right and its duty, to enforce education on all the people subject to its rule. The noble Lord at the head of the Govemment objected to the Dissenters that they had supported the Committee of Privy Council in 1839, whilst they oppose it in 1847 ; that they were then in favour of this interference, and are now against it. I admit that many, or at least, that some of the Dissenters were in favour of it eight years ago. But we have had some experience from 1839 to 1847. At that time the Dis senters regarded the institution of the Committee of Privy Council as a step leading away from that power which the Church of England wished to usurp, of educating the whole people ; and the Dissenters hoped, we were on the road at last to overcome the pretensions which the Church of England had so long asserted, that she was called upon and bound to undertake the business of education, and that she ought to be en trusted with the education of the people. But from 1839 to this year we have found no step taken by the Government which has not had a tendency to ag grandize the Established Church. In 1839 the noble Lord proposed a scheme which, from the opposition of the Es tablished Church and the Wesleyans, was withdrawn. In 1843, the right hon. Baronet the late Secretary for the Home Department (Sir James Graham) proposed a scheme of education in connection with the Factories Bill — a scheme which was thought by everybody to give undue power to the Established Church, and which, in consequence of the opposition of the Dissenters, was withdrawn. In 1847, the noble Lord comes forward with another scheme. It has the same defect ; its object, ten dency, and result will be to give increased and enormous power to the clergy of the Established Church. It is a scheme of which the Dissenters cannot avail themselves, in accordance with the principles by which they are Dissenters ; and, therefore, they are bound now to step forward and protest against this as against the former schemes. And I wonder not they have come to the con clusion that it is dangerous to them as members of Dissenting bodies, and dangerous also to the civil liberty of the people, that the State should interfere with education, since the Government, it appears, is not able to interfere with out giving increased power to the clergy of an already dominant Church. The right hon. Gentleman the Mem ber for Edinburgh, and the noble Lord who has just sat down, have both failed to convey to the House any intimation that there is much doing in the cause of education by voluntary effort throughout the kingdom. If a man came to this House from any other country, and knew nothing of what was going on in England, he would have come to the conclusion that voluntary efforts had not only not succeeded, but had never even been attempted — so little would appear to have been done from the statements they made to the House. If these efforts have succeeded, few Mem bers will say that any interference by the Government is desirable. If there be one principle more certain than another, I suppose it is this, that what a people is able to do for itself, that the Government should not attempt to do for it. For nothing tends so much to strengthen a people — to make them great and good — as the constant exercise of all their faculties for public objects, and the carrying on of all pubdc works 1847. GOVERNMENT SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 53i and objects by voluntary contributions among themselves. I will just ask the attention of the House for a moment to what has been done during the last few years. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh said, we had been trying the voluntary principle ever since the Hep tarchy ; that the voluntary principle had been, in fact, for generations and ages on its trial ; and the result was, that we had an enormous amount of intel lectual destitution in the country. But it is not a fair statement to say, that we have been trying the voluntary system since the Heptarchy. We have not been trying, the voluntary system to make railroads since the Heptarchy, but since the year 1830 ; and it would be as fair a statement to say that the voluntary system would never make railroads for this countiy, because it had not made railroads in fifteen or six teen years, as to say that the voluntary system will not educate the people be cause it has not provided full means of education since 1790; manyarchbishops, bishops, and other distinguished mem bers of the Established Church having opposed themselves to the effective education of the common people. The House is not very fond, and I admire its judgment in this respect, of hearing statistics on a question of this kind ; but it is a matter of figures as to what has been done. Looking to the statistics given by the friends and oppo nents of this measure, by Dr: Hook and Mr. Baines, and others who have made calculations on the subject, it appears that from the year 1818 to this time the progress has been something extraordi nary. In 1 81 8 there were 674,000 day- scholars in England and Wales; in 1833, there were 1,276,000; in 1847, there were 2,147,000. Thus, in 1818, the proportion was 1 in 17 to the popu lation; in 1833, it was I in 11; in , 1847, it was 1 in 8. The population has increased only 49 per cent, since that time, whilst the scholars in our day-schools have increased at least 210 per cent. ; that is, leaving out of view the numbers who are Sunday scholars. I agree with the noble Lord who spoke last, that Sunday-school education is not all the children should have : but when you are complaining of the want, the des titution of education, it is fair that should be taken into account. In 1818, the Sunday scholars numbered 477,000; in 1833, they were more than 1,000,000; and from that time to this there has been a very rapid increase. Now, look at Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary at War, I think, is not in his place, or he could tell us something about the Church with which he is so honourably con nected, I mean the Free Church of Scotland. If within three or four years they have raised more than 1,000,000/. sterling, if they have built or offered to build schools in some 600 or 700 parishes, what will the right hon. Mem ber for Edinburgh say to this ? I have been in their churches and chapels ; and if there be one thing more honourable to the Scotchmen of this generation than another, it is the magnanimous and wonderful efforts which the mem bers of that communion have made to constitute themselves a Church free from the trammels and embarrassments attendant on a connection with the State. We will take Wales, and see what has been done there. In the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald of the 21st of March, 1846, I find it stated, that ' About seven or eight years ago, in the seventy-three parishes of Anglesea, in which there were churches, there was not one Sunday-school connected with the Established Church, whilst there were in the county no fewer than 156 Sunday- schools kept by the various denominations of Dissenters.' And the statement went on — ' There are now in the six counties of North Wales alone 1,022 places of public worship, in which Sunday-schools are regularly kept by Dissenters, and well attended, viz. — 34—2 532 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 20, Calvinistic Methodists . 479 schools. Independents . . . 260 ,, Baptists 81 „ Wesleyans 203 „ which were attended by upwards of 140,000 children altogether.' With respect to Wales, there is this re markable fact, that the education of the common people— of the labouring classes — has been altogether the work of the Dissenting communities in that part of the kingdom. There is not a Member of this House from Wales, on whatever side of the House he sits, who will deny that something like nine out of ten of the labouring classes in Wales who have received education within the last fifty years, have received that education at the hands of the Dissenting bodies. There is, I believe, a Commission of educational inquiry now at work in Wales. We have not their report yet ; but I venture to foretell that when that report is printed it wid establish the fact I have stated — that of late years, where the Church has educated one child in this part of the countiy, the Dissenting Churches have educated from eight to ten. The noble Lord at the head of the Go vernment appears to differ from his right hon. Colleague the Member for Edin burgh. From what he states, I under stand he is of opinion that the voluntary principle has done a good deal — namely, it has provided schools sufficient for the wants of the population. The noble Lord said, speaking of his coming back to office — ' When, however, we came, being newly- appointed members of the Committee, to consider the state of education, it ap peared to us that a very great number of schools had been built, and that there was no longer such a demand as there had been for money to build schools ; and that as various deficiencies in the management and conduct of the schools had been ob served, it would be advisable to make Minutes, proposing a different distribution of the sum which might be voted by Parliament, and laying down . in. those Minutes what the application of that sum should be.' So that we have the authority of the noble Lord for this fact, that the system hitherto pursued, the voluntary system, has provided schools in about sufficient abundance; and it is because the Go vemment actually did not find that they had the means of distributing their grants for the building of schools, that they now come before the House and ask for powers to be allowed to spend the grants in improving the quality'. of the education. Is it likely, I ask, that the system which has built their schools for many of the population of this coun try, will be very long in improving the quality of the education given in them ? is it likely that we shall have to wait long before it wid be no more neces sary to pay and pension the school masters out of the public funds, than it is now to build schools for the accom modation of the children taught ? The noble Lord says — ' I do not understand, then, why any Dissenter should refuse to partake of this grant on the ground that part of this money is given to Church of England schools, these Church schools being sup ported by the subscriptions of individuals who are members of that Church.' I think it was not very ingenuous of the noble Lord to make such a statement as this in his speech. He must know it is not because the Church of England re ceives money from this grant that Non conformists object to the grant ; but it is because Nonconformists themselves, in accordance with the principles by which they are so, cannot receive public money for the teaching of religion in their schools; and, therefore, they ob ject to the State giving money as an advantage to the Church schools — an advantage by which they must profit, and which will certainly be most damag ing to the Dissenting schools. The right hon. Member for Edin burgh does not generally speak with great courtesy of Dissenters and Non- I847- GOVERNMENT SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 533 conformists. I have heard him speak in this House, I think, of the braying of Exeter Hall ; and last night he spoke frequently of the clamour made out of doors. It is a very old story for Gentle men in office — and there must be many comforts, conveniences, and pleasures, no doubt, connected with office, or men would not seek it so much — it is a com mon thing for men in office to say that any opposition to their plans made out of doors is clamour. But I ask whether it is likely that five hundred men, from ad parts of the countiy, would come up to London, and take the trouble they have done, meeting all the hostility and obloquy heaped upon them, if they did not believe that there was something important in the Minutes to the in terests of the different religious com munities with which they are connected? And I think that the right hon. Gentle man is one of the last men in this House who should treat this movement as clamour, and condemn it as if it came from an unreasonable class of persons. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that they are abandoning all the prin ciples which the Nonconformists of past times ever taught ; he tells us what re publican statesmen and leaders in the United States have said, what has been done or held by Washington, Jefferson, and the commonwealth of Massa chusetts. But is there any comparison between the United States and the United Kingdom? Is there any Esta blished Church in the United States? Has the commonwealth of Massachu setts, in every one of its parishes, a gentleman highly educated, well paid, connected by birth or standing with the aristocratic and privileged class, not in fluenced by the popular sentiment and the popular mind, but acting always in unison and conformity with the privi leged class to which he is attached? Give us, if you please, the state of things which exists in the United States, and particularly in that State of Massa chusetts. Free us from the trammels of your Church— set religion apart from the interference of the State— if you will make public provision for education, let it not depend upon the doctrines of a particular creed— and then you will find the various sects in this country will be as harmonious on the question of educa tion as are the people of the United States of America. Just recollect, when the whole of the Nonconformists are charged with cla mour, what they mean by being Non conformists. They object, as I under stand, at least I object, to the principle by which the Government seizes public funds in order to give salaries and sup port to the teachers of all sects of religion, or of one sect of religion, for I think the one plan nearly as unjust as the other. Either the Nonconformists hold this opinion, or they are a great imposture. They object to any portion of the public money going to teachers of religion belonging either to the Established Church or to Dissenting bodies ; they object to the receiving it for themselves. They find certain Min utes infringing on this principle. You wish to establish a system by which the young persons of this countiy shall be trained to certain religious tenets. In your Church schools, we are to have the Catechism taught, and the Liturgy taught, as well as the Scriptures read. All this is to be done under the cog nizance and supervision of the clergy man of the parish. The children are to be examined by the clergymen and by inspectors appointed by the Govern ment, who are also to be clergymen of the Church of England. The Minutes do not say so ; but under the compact entered into by the Government with the Church, they can appoint no in spector who is not palatable to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The in spector must be discharged if the Arch bishop expresses an opinion unfavour able to him. Of course this is in Church of England schools only. I admit that the noble Lord will not cany it the length of proposing this for Dissenting schools ; he will not venture to do so. We are not yet sufficiently humiliated for that. No Government 534 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. in this countiy durst attempt to carry that into effect. But if you had the power to carry out the spirit expressed in the Minutes, I say the Dissenting schools would not be free from inter ference by the clergymen of the State Church. I am prepared to contend that the powers given by these Minutes to the clergymen examiners are calculated to give a great increase of power to all the clergymen of the Established Church. They are made public officers with respect to schools. Now, the vicar of the parish enters the schools, and in quires about the children; but he has no more power than any other gentle man who may choose to visit it and do the same. But by your Minutes you empower him to enter under the au thority of an inspector, who, by your compact with the Church, can only be a clergyman of the Established Church. I say these clergymen and inspectors are prone to meddle with everything. They will go there and examine the children in their books ; they will inter rogate the teachers as to their methods and their learning. Do you think, if they find a child whose brother or sister goes to a Dissenting chapel, the clergyman will not be zealous enough to use his influence to induce him to attend the church ? It is notorious that, in all parts of England, charities, never intended to be used for the promotion of particular religious opinions, but which are in the hands of the Established Church, are distributed with a view to the effect they may have in bringing an increase of attendance to the National schools or the churches of the Establishment. I know numbers of these cases myself; and I know that a child who did not bow down to the Church, or who refused to go to a National school, would find himself placed under the ban of the clergyman. All the inducements to him, which you boast of, to rise in the world and gain an honourable station in society, would be merely as the idle wind that blows, and would be of no avail whatever to obtain for him an honourable place in life. If anything were wanted to show the effect of these Minutes, look at the triumph your pro positions have excited among the mem bers of the Established Church, and the clergy especially. Was there ever a good measure for Nonconformists proposed that was received with an exulting shout of gratulation by the hon. Baronet below me (Sir R. H. Inglis), by the Bishops, and by all the clergy of the kingdom? I am wrong, perhaps, as regards the hon. Baronet ; he did not loudly exult, but he took the measure meekly, he took it very thankfully. I acknowledge that the Church is thankful for everything it can get, and it never loses anything for want of ask ing for it. I confess I am astonished that Churchmen throughout the country — I do not speak of the clergy, but the laity — have supported this measure, be cause I think they are as much interested as the Dissenters in opposing any ex tension of power on the part of the clergy. Nothing tends more to impede the progress of liberty, nothing is more fatal to independence of spirit in the public, than to add to the powers of the priesthood in matters of education. If you give them such increased powers by legislative enactment, you do more than you could effect by any other means to enslave and degrade a people subject to their influence. There is yet another point to which I must advert. In the speech of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, who dwelt with great emphasis on the impartiality which he attributed to this proposed system, the right hon. Gentieman said: — ' I do wish that, instead of using phrases of disparagement against the scheme pro posed, hon. Gentlemen would just answer me this plain question : — Supposing in any one city there should be a school con nected with the Church, another connected with the Wesleyans, and another with the Presbyterians — will any Gentleman dis tinctly point out to me what share of the public money or what patronage is that which the school connected with the 1847. GOVERNMENT SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 535 Church will get, and which the other schools will not get?' That is the question to which the right hon. Gentleman asked for an answer. If the right hon. Gentleman had looked over the giants that have already been made, he would have found that out of the sum of 149,000/., which during the last three years has been distributed by the Committee of the Privy Council, the Church has received 141,000/. There never was anything so impartial. ['Hear, hear!'] No doubt hon. Gen tlemen opposite, who cheer, will say that the Dissenters might have had it if they had asked for it. True, but the Dissenters were of a different temper from that. They did not separate fiom the Established Church that they should afterwards come whining and asking the Government to support their educa tional system. Their very principle is that the Government has no right to appropriate public funds for the pur pose of religious instruction. The right hon. Gentieman the Member for Edin burgh knows right well that in times past they have refused die public money for such a purpose, and tiiat in times to come they are likely to come still less forward than hitherto to avail them selves of such support. The right hon. Gentleman took us to the United States last night, and I will ask him to accompany me there now for a moment. The impartiality of your plan is Uke this. Suppose at the present time in the United States — there being no Established Church there — the Government were to offer an en dowment to the religious sects, and nine-tenths having refused to accept it, the Government were to persist in en dowing the remaining one-tenth, while the others protested against the prin ciple of endowment altogether ; in that condition of things the plea of impar tiality would be as just and fair as that put forward in the present case by the right hon. Gentleman. The Dissenters have not taken, and they will not take, this money; and it must be clear to those who know the histoiy and under stand anything of the principles of Non conformity, that any Nonconfonnist who takes one sixpence of this grant for the purpose of teaching the tenets of his particular sect, can never afterwards, with any show of consistency and good faith, say one syllable against the domi nation and usurpation of the Esta blished Church. I think that in this year 1847 the time may be said to have come, when, although the members of the Established Church may not consider such scruples wise and prudent, the scruples which do exist and are conscientiously entertained by thousands and millions of our coun trymen should be respected, and when the Government should pause before it holds out a great temptation to men to abandon their principles ; and, in the event of their refusing to abandon them, offers an enormous advantage to the members of the Established Church. With respect to the Roman Catholics, the right hon. Gentleman did not give a direct reply to the statement of the hon. Member for Finsbury on that part of the subject, when he read an extract from a speech of the noble Lord in 1839 ; and, as there has been some talk of the negotiations which have been going on with the Wesleyans during the last fort night, I should be glad, if the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department should think it worth while to notice anything I say, to receive an answer to this question — Have the Privy Council communicated with the authorities and dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church with re spect to the appointment of inspectors of Roman Catholic schools, or have they not? If they have, then it follows of course that they must have had the intention, when these Minutes were laid upon the tables of both Houses of Parliament, to make grants to Roman Catholic schools. That would be some thing noble, something great, something to be admired, in coming forward to offer this great boon to ad classes of the people without favour or distinction. 536 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. In this House I have often heard men taunt the Dissenters with bigotry in their conduct towards the Roman Catholic population ; but let it be said that those Dissenters have ever ac corded and been willing to accord to their Roman Catholic brethren all and everything they sought and could con scientiously accept for themselves. Civil rights and privileges the Dissenters have been willing to grant to Catholics. Many of them who have had seats in this House since 1829 would never have found admittance here had it not been for the assistance they received in their straggle for civil liberty at the hands of the Dissenting body. My honest opinion is this, that when these Minutes were laid upon the table, the Government intended, and most wisely, to open these grants to all persons of all religious persuasions whatsoever. The Government had no idea that there would be a disturbance about these Minutes. They were drawn up by a very clever secretary, who, like other secretaries, is disposed to magnify the importance of his office, and when drawn up they were, no doubt, submitted to the oversight of the bishops in the other House. The whole thing was comfortably concocted, and it was supposed the Dissenters would take it without asking any questions. But the moment the Wesleyans evinced a dis position to join other Dissenters in resisting the measure, it was feared that the opposition might grow too formid able, and negotiations were entered into. Possibly the Government did not make the first overture in this negotiation ; but it often happens in these cases, as every body knows, that there is some con venient friend to make the primary advance, and put the negotiation in train. At this time the Wesleyans are supposed to be under the delusion that the Roman Catholics are to be excluded ; and if they are, I am reminded of what has been said by a well-known writer, that it is sometimes as pleasant to be cheated as to cheat. I am not now going to detain the House with any observations as to the construction of the Committee of the Privy Council, nor will I enter into particulars of the expenditure to be incurred, or of the bribes to be offered. This only I will remark, that I believe the last thing any reasonable man would do to elevate his fellow-man, is to make him a pensioner or recipient of the bounty of the Govemment. But the question is, whether the Nonconformists, forming so large a part of the population of this country, are to have their feelings and principles disregarded in the course of legislation you adopt — whether a new system of education is to be introduced which you teach everybody's religion at everybody's expense ? The Noncon formists deny your right to do this: they will not receive your money. You offer them that which is of no value to them ; and the Church, less scrupulous, receives the gift. The consequence is that the schools of the Dissenters will stand at a great disadvantage as com pared with the Church schools — the one class depending solely upon voluntary contributions, the other having certain bribes attached to it of provision for Ufe, and for the maintenance of which the House is asked to vote at the ex pense of all. I wid say nothing now of the wonder ful statesmanship which has chosen this particular season to open an arena of strife, and throw down an apple of dis cord amongst us when there was an appearance of concord and unanimity. I am sorry it has come to this ; I am sorry, not because of the particular effect it may have upon this Government or that Government, but because I must ever regret to see discord and bitterness introduced upon religious subjects, and because I know that when once this strife begins, real interests, useful matters, are neglected ; and men separate and stray aside from paths which they might tread together to the advantage of their com mon country. I will now conclude ; and if I have been betrayed into some warmth of ex pression, let it be remembered that I am i847- GOVERNMENT SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 537 a member of the Nonconfonnist body. My forefathers languished in prison by the acts of that Church which you now ask me to aggrandise. Within two years places of worship of the sect to which I belong have been despoiled of their furniture to pay the salary of a minister of the Established Church ; and when I look back and see how that Church has been uniformly hostile to the progress of public liberty, it is impossible for me to withhold my protest against the out rage committed by the Government on the Nonconformist body for the sake of increasing the power of a political insti tution, which I believe is destined to fall before the growing Christianity and the extending freedom of the people. CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 27, i860. From Hansard. I feel somewhat indebted to the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Whiteside) for having come forward as a new advocate upon this question, for he has thrown, by that physical force ora tory of which he is so great a master, some new light upon a question which has been worn almost threadbare. But I do not think that when his speech is read to-morrow it will persuade that great portion of the people who object to Church-rates that the system now existing should be permanently con tinued. I was not present at the open ing of the learned Gentleman's speech, but when I entered the House he was telling us that the Nonconformists of the olden time were a much better class of men than the Dissenters of the present day; that they made no objections to the equity of Church-rates. That was a sentiment which was received with great enthusiasm by hon. Gentlemen opposite, who for the first time have appeared as decided admirers of the Nonconformists of the past. In answer to that it may be said that from the time of Queen Elizabeth down to the Act of Toleration the principles of reli gious freedom were little understood in this country. We know that not the Church only when it had the power, but many of the Nonconformists them selves, admitted that it was right not only to raise taxes for the support of a particular Church — their own Church — but that it was positively right to coerce those persons who held religious opinions differing from their own. They had not advanced as far as the great body of the English people, including hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the party they represent, have now advanced, and therefore the learned Gentleman's argu ment goes for very little. But he has treated the House to a public reading of a large portion of the evidence o£ I think, two gentlemen who were witnesses before the Committee of the House of Lords. I shall refer only to the evidence of one of these gentlemen — Mr. Bunting. I suspect that when the name of Bunting was mentioned there was a general impression that this was the evidence of a very distinguished man who, although not nominally, yet actually, was Bishop or Archbishop, and almost Pope, in the sect of which he was so distinguished a Member. But that is not the case. The learned Gen tleman, not for the first time in his life as a counsel learned in the law, has been beholden for his brief to an attorney practising in Manchester. Mr. Bunting is not a minister of the Metho dist Church, as I understand, but is in the profession of the law, and therefore I must strip him of any authority he has upon this matter in connection with the Methodist Church in consequence april 27, i860. CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. 539 of his bearing the name of Bunting. I must say, further, that this Gentleman, although in some sort a Nonconformist, inasmuch as I presume he attends a Methodist Chapel, is a politician of a peculiar kind, such as is not found very frequently among the Dissenting body. I dare say he agrees with the most ob structive, if I may use the term, Con servative or Tory among hon. Gentlemen opposite, and if we had taken his opinion upon all those questions of policy which this House has decided in favour of popular rights and justice to the people of this country during the last twenty years, I have not the least doubt that Mr. Bunting would have been as con clusive in his evidence against all those concessions as he appears to have been upon the question of Church-rates. But the learned Gentleman did not treat the House quite fairly in stating the evidence of this Gentleman, because even he did not feel himself courageous enough to say that the Wesleyan body was in favour of Church-rates. I find he says, in answer to a question whether there was any likelihood of petitions being sent by them : — ' No : from a fear on the part of those who sympathize with the Church of Eng land of eliciting an opinion to the contrary. There is among us a general agreement not to disturb questions which we do not consider essential. The opposition would, I believe, be from a minority in our own body.' ' A distinct minority ? — I think I should call it so.' The House will see from this, that although Mr. Bunting is not remarkable for great hesitation generally in his opinions upon this matter, yet he does hesitate to say that the Wesleyan body was with any sort of unanimity in favour of Church-rates. And I can give my testimony, living as I do in a neighbour hood where they are very numerous, and where their services have been very great, to the fact that when the question of Church-rates is mooted and contests take place, although a few leading men are anxious to keep the question quiet, because it is one which might disturb their body, as far as my observation goes, a very large number — I think a majority — who attend their chapels have generally acted with the party by which Church-rates were opposed. But it must be borne in mind that the Wesleyan body is of a peculiar character, that its govemment is more strictly priestly than anything that exists in the Church of England, and almost beyond anything outside the Church of Rome. The Conference, composed of one hundred ministers, dominates to a large extent not only over the private opinions and individual action of the members, but also over what I may call the corporate or sect action, and throughout their numerous chapels in this country, unless the Conference were to give the order or its permission, we should probably not find from any of these congregations petitions presented to this House. But from this fact may be traced an important series of circum stances — that there have been from that body numerous secessions of very note worthy character, secessions which have not arisen from any difference as to the doctrine, but simply as to the absolute government of the Conference. Not withstanding all this, as I have said, great numbers of them — I believe a very great majority — vote in opposition to , Church-rates whenever a contest takes place, and do unite in sympathy upon this question with the great body of Dissenters belonging to other sects. I should not have said so much about this particular body had it not been for the extraordinary importance which the learned Gentleman has given to this part of the subject. I find, however, that even from the Conference Metho dists there have been 135 petitions pre sented, from the Methodist New Con nection 97, from the Methodist Free Church 164, from the Primitive Metho dists 265, from the CalvinisticMethodists 108, from the United Methodists, the Methodist Reformers, and the Wesleyan Association 47 ; making a total of more 54° SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 27, than 800 petitions which have been presented from the whole body of Methodists in favour of this Bill. Now, as to the other sects of Dissenters, I believe the learned Gentleman has not been able to make out any kind of case, or show any difference of opinion among them upon this question. I think he will admit that they are, with as much unanimity as can ever be expected upon public questions, in favour of a repeal of Church-rates. But if it be, as he says, that this movement is merely the movement of a few busy, meddling agi tators belonging to those sects — whose numbers, by the way, he has not given very accurately — if that be so, how comes it that throughout the country and in this House they have obtained so large a share of support ? That fact is a very ugly one, and the right hon. < and learned Gentleman passed it over. Even the Church, on whose behalf the learned Gentleman professes to speak, is itself not unanimous upon this ques tion, and in all the parishes in towns and cities where Church-rates have been abolished, every Member who has been engaged in this question will admit that no inconsiderable number of those who regularly attend the services of the Church have joined those agitating, meddling Dissenters in their attempt to put an end to the system of Church- rates. I should say in those districts a large minority — I will not say a ma jority — of Churchmen have been as willing to get Church-rates abolished as Dissenters themselves. I live in a town in which contests about Church-rates have been carried on in past years with a vigour and determination, and, if you like it, with an animosity which has not been sur passed in any other part of the kingdom. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, who profess to be in favour of what is called a stand- up fight, will be glad to hear that nothing could exceed the activity of their friends in that parish, nothing could exceed the profuseness with which they were willing to pay for a contest, in order that all might have to contri bute to a Church which at that time they themselves were not willing ade quately to support. The very last contest of this kind cost the Church party in the parish as much money as, if invested at the common rate of in terest, would have supported the fabric of the Church for ever. [A cry of ' How much ? '] I can tell the hon. Gen tleman what was the estimate formed, which I believe was never disputed, and which, judging from the expenditure on the other side, was not, I should say, very inaccurate. I believe that the expenditure would not be less than from 3000/. to 4000/. It is a large parish, probably ten miles square, and contains nearly 100,000 inhabitants ; and I need not tell hon. Members that there is no class of people in England more deter mined and more unconquerable, which ever side they take, than are the people of the county from which I come. What was the result of that struggle ? The result was that the Church-rate was for ever entirely abolished in that parish. I have since seen several lists of candidates for the churchwardenship put forth by Churchmen, each of which claimed support upon the ground that they would never consent to the re- imposition of a Church-rate; and the parish has been for many years upon this question a model of tranquillity. It would not be enough that it should be a model of tranquillity if the result had followed which the learned Gentie- man foretold in such dolorous language, that religion would be uncared for, and that the Gospel would no longer be preached to the poor ; but I will under take to say that since that contest that venerable old parish church has had laid out upon it, in repairing and beauti fying it, from money subscribed not altogether, but mainly by Churchmen, ten times, ay, twenty times as much as was ever expended upon it during a far longer period of years in which Church- rates were levied. During that period there were discussions about the grave yard, about the hearses, about the washing of the surplices, about some- i860. CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. 541 body who had to sweep out the church. There were discussions of all sorts, of a most initating and offensive character. The clock which was there for the benefit of the public no longer told the time, and, in fact, there was evidence of that sort of decay to which the learned Gentleman has pointed as the inevitable result of the abolition of Church-rates. Since the rate ceased to be levied the clock has kept time with admirable fidelity, and to such an extent has the liberality of Churchmen gone, that very lately they have put up another clock in a neighbouring church. I believe that in the parish of Rochdale the Church people have received far more benefit from the abolition of the Church- rate than the Dissenters have. They have found out, what they never knew before, that when placed upon the same platform as Dissenters, and obliged to depend upon their own resources, they are as liberal and zealous as other sects. I wish that the learned Gentleman had told us, and I hope that some one who may follow him wid do so, how it happens that year by year there has been growing in this House a power in oppo sition to Church-rates, while at the same time there has been less animosity throughout the country upon this ques tion. I believe it has arisen from the growth of a better feeling on both sides, and from the fact that year by year there have been secessions from the supporters of Church-rates through out the country, and that more and more without the action of Parliament the principle embodied in the clauses of the Bill of my hon. Friend has come to be acted upon. Now what is the real point between us? — because I believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree with me, that if it could be done it would be better that this ques tion should be for ever disposed of. What is the question at issue between us? Does any man dispute the evils that have arisen ? The right hon. and learned Gentleman has, in a speech of great vigour, endeavoured to throw ridicule and contempt upon the great body of the Dissenting population of this country. [' No, no I '] Well, at any rate, he has not refrained from ex pressions of harshness towards those whom he charges with being the movers in this question. But does he believe, or do any of you believe, that if those persons did not in the main possess the confidence of the great body of the Dissenters, they could in a week, a fort night, or a month, stir them up from one end of the country to the other, and bring to your table the signatures of 500,000 of your countrymen ? [Cries of ' 600,000.'] I am reminded that the number is 600,000, but in a matter of this kind I am not particular to 100,000 or less. I say, then, is there any one here who disputes the evils which have arisen from these discussions ? I con fess that I have sometimes wished that I could speak in this House, even if it were for only one half hour, in the character of a member of the Church of England. If I could have done that I should have appealed to the House in language far more emphatic and impressive than I have ever been able to use as a Dissenter, in favour of the abolition of this most mischievous and obnoxious impost. The right hon. and learned Gentle man has no plan. I think he was right in making that admission. I believe there are only two courses which can be pursued. One is to leave the law exactly as it is, a course which, if this matter did not touch a question of reli gion, I should not complain of, because it leaves the majority in every parish to decide for itself. The other plan is that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock. You have tried every kind of contrivance. The right hon. Gentle man the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) proposed a plan. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin was a Member of the Government by which that plan was proposed ; and, as he now says that he has no plan, I presume that he has abandoned the 542 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 27, plan of the right hon. Gentleman oppo site. The right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary, and the right hon. Baronet the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, also tried plans. Indeed, there are in the House many who have aspired to legislate upon this subject, but have failed in these attempts at conciliation; and I think we must all feel conscious that we must either remain as we are, or adopt the Bill which is now before us. I confess that I am altogether against any kind of dodge by which this matter may be even temporarily settled. I think that if this Church be a national establish ment, you cannot by law insist that its support shall be drawn from only a portion of the population. I agree with you altogether in that. If I were a Churchman I would never consent to it, and, not being a Churchman, I wholly repudiate it. The dissensions to which I have referred have prevailed, prevail still, and cannot terminate as long as this impost exists. What is its natural and inevitable result ? It must be to create and stimulate the pride of supremacy in the dominant Church, and at the same time produce what I shall call the irritation of subjugation and injustice on the part of that great portion of the people who support their own ministers and places of worship, and who think that they ought not to be called upon to support those of any other sect or Church. Now, is it neces sary that this should continue ? I often have occasion in this House to give hope to hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are probably the most despairing poli tical party that any country ever had within its borders. They despair of almost everything. They despaired of agriculture. Agriculture triumphs. They despair of their Church, yet whenever that Church has been left to its own resources and to the zeal of its members its triumph has been manifest to the country and to the world. Are you made of different material from the five millions of people who go to the Dis senting chapels of England and Wales ? You have your churches, — I speak of the old ones, not of those recently erected by means of voluntary contri butions, — you have your churches, which you call national, and you have them for nothing. You have your ministers paid out of property anciently be queathed or intrusted to the State for their use. In that respect you stand in a far better position for undertaking what, if Church-rates are abolished, you must undertake, than do the great body of your Dissenting brethren. Have you less zeal, have you less liberality, than they have? Do not you con tinually boast in this House that you are the owners of the great bulk of the landed property of the country? Are you not the depositaries of political power, and do you not tell us that when a Dissenter becomes rich he always walks away from the chapel into your church ? If this be so, am I appealing in vain to you, or reasoning in vain with you, when I try to encourage you to believe that if there were no Church- rates the members of your church and your congregations would be greatly improved, and that, as has taken place in the parish in which I live, your churches would be better supported by your own voluntary and liberal contri butions, than they can ever be by the penny per pound issuing from the pockets of men who do not attend your church, and who are rendered ten times more hostile to it by the very effort to make them contribute to its support. I believe that Church-rates must before long be abolished. Hence, I wish to afford some hope and consola tion, if I can, to hon. Gentlemen oppo site. Mr. Osborne and Mr. Bunting, from whom the right hon. and learned Member so largely quoted, themselves belong to a body that has done marvels in this countiy in erecting chapels, paying ministers, establishing schools, raising the dead, if you like— for men who were dead to religion have been made Christians; and they have preached '¦ the Gospel to the poor in every county, I might almost say in every parish in i860. CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. 543 the kingdom. Yet they have not come to Parliament for grants of money ; and, although they have often come to me and others for contributions to their chapels and schools, they have never had any force of law to enable them to raise their funds. Throughout Eng land and Wales what would be the con dition of your population, your religious establishments, your education, if it were not for the liberality of those sects of whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks fit to speak in dis paraging terms ? But I pass to his own country, and though I should like to see Irish Mem bers more frequently taking part in the discussion of questions affecting England and Wales than they do, I was surprised to find that the right hon. and learned Gentleman made no reference whatever to what has taken place in the island from which he himself comes. In the year 1833 you abolished the vestry cess, the Church-rate of Ireland: you abol ished one-fourth of the tithe — that is, you took it from the Church and gave it to the landlord ; you did many things which the Irish Church at that time, which many Gentlemen of the same party as the right hon. and learned Member denounced, just as you de nounce the present Bill. Of course it will be said that the Earl of Derby has since then changed his opinions, and therefore the views he held at that period will have no authority with his followers now. But what has been the effect on that Church ? Is there a man in this House with the slightest know ledge of what has occurred in Ireland during the last thirty years, who wid not admit that the Irish Protestant Establishment would have been abso lutely uprooted and separated from the State for' ever long before- now but for the large measure of change — I will say of reform to which the Earl of Derby, as a Minister of that day, was a party ? If that be true, what right has anybody to charge the hon. Member for Tavistock with a deadly hostility to the Church of England? I do not believe there is a man in this country at this moment who has any hostility to the Church of England as a Church. I never met with such a man. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to a friend of mine who not long ago had a seat in this House, although he did not mention him by name. I allude to Mr. Miall. There is no man in Eng land whose character for religion, mo rality, intelligence, or a persistent devotion to what he believes to be right stands higher than that of Mr. Miall. But Mr. Miall has not the smallest objection to the Church of England as a religious body, any more than he has to the Methodist Conference or any other denomination which teaches its own peculiar views of Christianity. What he objects to is that the Church should be, as it has been, so much of a political institution. And there can be no doubt but that among the clergy of the Establishment and the most thoughtful of her sons there is through out the kingdom at this moment a deep sentiment at work which, altogether apart from Mr. Miall and the Liberation Society, is destined before many years are over to make great changes in the constitution and condition of that Church. And I undertake to say that, if their views, or those of Mr. Miall, were carried out by Parliament, the Church would still be a Church at least as great, as powerful, and as respected as it ever was at any period of its his tory. I believe it would, as effectually as it ever has done, raise to life those who are religiously dead, and at the same time, more extensively than it does now, preach the Gospel to the poor. But the right hon. and learned Gen tleman might have given us another lesson from Ireland. There the great body of the people — not the possessors of wealth — are in connection with the Roman Catholic Church. Many of us have been in Ireland. I have myself spent several weeks there, travelling from one part of the country to another. I saw chapels everywhere, — that great cathedrals had been built, that there 544 SPEECHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. APRIL 27, were evidences of great zeal and won derful liberality among a people at that time poor and dejected, and in a lower physical condition, I undertake to say, than could have been found in any other population in any Christian country of Europe. The Irish Catholics, without any assistance from the State except a paltry grant, which I believe many of them would gladly forego, have pro vided for all the religious wants of their people. And I venture to assert that religion — not now speaking of particular doctrines or forms — has there permeated even to the lowest class of society in a manner that is not equalled in this part of the kingdom, where your Church Establishment has for ages reigned al most supreme. But if you are not satisfied with the case of Ireland, let us go to Wales. There you have a poor population who are mainly Dissenters. The Welsh Dis senters do not own the great estates. They have no ancient endowments, no grants from Parliament. They do not even send representatives to this House — [' Oh 1 '] — representatives I mean of their peculiar views. Eight-tenths of the people of Wales have no connection with the Established Church. Yet, poor as they are, compared with the population of England, there is not a nook or corner of the Principality in which there are not a chapel, a school, and a minister, or in which you do not constantly see the influence of religious teaching on the character and habits of the people. But go a little farther north, to a land where men are not supposed to mis understand their own interests. I refer to the country on the other side of the Tweed. You have an Established Church there. Many years ago you had two considerable secessions from its pale which became powerful sects. They have since united themselves, and their , power has proportionately in creased. But lately, within the recol lection of every Member of this House, for it is but seventeen years ago, there was another great secession ; and from what men fancied was the ruin of the Established Church of Scotland there arose a new Church, offering, I wid say, to the world, an example of zeal and munificence such as has not been wit nessed in this countiy during the life time of the present generation. Not long ago, while in Scotland — a country to which I am very glad to flee when we are liberated from attendance in this House — I took the pains to make some inquiry upon this question ; and I found that the Free Church, which comprises probably not more than one-third of that portion of the population who pay any attention to religious matters, raised. voluntarily, during the year when I made the inquiry, a larger sum than the whole annual emoluments of the Established Church of Scotland. It has built, I think, something like seven hundred churches throughout that part of the kingdom, and as many manses or dwellings for its ministers. It has also established schools in almost every parish. And I tell the House with the utmost sincerity that I believe I never questioned any man in Scotland as to the effect of die disruption who did not admit that, painful as it was, and utterly as he and many others might have opposed it, still it has been full of blessings to the people of that country. I believe the number of persons who frequent places of worship, the number of schools, and the number of scholars who attend them, are all far larger than ever they were before the last great secession. Bear in mind that, with the exception of a very few persons of high station in society, including one or tv^o Members of the other House and two or three of this, the property of Scot land, as far as property is to be mea sured by the possession of the soil, has not gone with the Free Church at all. Yet you find throughout the whole of that country those vast results from a zeal, a religious fervour, a munificence, which are not a whit greater than would be exhibited under the same circum stances by members of the Church of England. But such a state of things, i86o. CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. 545 I say, must raise the character of the people of Scotland, high as it was before, still higher in the estimation of the Christian world. Only one other point with regard to this voluntary question. Apart from the discussions and divisions, from Bills and clauses in this House, if I were to ask any hon. Member on the other side whether he believed that the Church of England was not, or would not, become as liberal as any other sect, I have no doubt he would at once say that to assert the contrary would be to slander and misrepresent the members of that Church. Well, I think so too, and the evidence lies in what the Church has been doing of late years. If you stand upon any eminence in the neighbour hood of any large town or city in England, you will see everywhere towers and spires indicating the tem ples that have been raised in recent days for the worship of God; and so also, if you travel over the country, as you now rapidly do, you will see through the glass of the railway caniage one spire here, another there, and a third yonder. I do not always admire their architecture, but some of them are beau tiful objects in the landscape of which they form part. Well, this has all been achieved, not by the votes of Parliament, for they have ceased, but by exactly the same religious zeal, the same Christian benevolence, which have distinguished the rest of your countrymen, and which you, the richest and proudest of them all, would surely, under the like cir cumstances, equally display. I want to persuade you that this is a good Bill for the Established Church. I am not about to try to take you in by allow ing you to suppose that I agree with you as to a State Establishment for teaching religion. I agree on that ab stract question with Mr. Miad and the Liberation Society. I believe it is an evil to the State and to religion; but that is not a question for us to discuss how, or one which probably this gene ration will ever be called on to decide. I say, the abolition of these irritating levies of money in Ireland has been of great advantage to the Established Church of Ireland. I say, the more you remove your question of an Estab lishment from that constant and irri tating contest and discussion which are inseparable from the continuance of these rates, the more probably, for a long period of time, you will consolidate your Church ; and I am inclined to be lieve that its fall as a State Establish ment will never come from the assaults of those who are without it, but will rather come from the strong differences of doctrine among those within its pale. I should like to ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to look to a point in respect to which their Church is at a great disad vantage as compared with Dissenting congregations. I am in a position to observe both of them with great im partiality, because I belong to a sect which is very small, which some people say is decaying, although I believe its main principles are always spreading. I have no particular sympathy with Wesleyans, Independents, or Baptists, any more than I have with the congre gations which assemble in your churches. But have you not observed in London, and more particularly in the country, where you are more intimately ac quainted with the circumstances — have you not observed, that among the con gregations of Dissenting bodies there is a greater activity in all matters which belong to their churches, and to objects which they unite together in promoting as a religious community ? Do not you find that from the richest and the most influential man who enters a chapel on a Sunday to the humblest of the congre gation ¦ there is, as it were, a chain of sympathy running through them all, which gives to them a great strength, which combines them together, which influences the humblest and the highest for good, and which gives to the con gregation a power which is found to be greatly less existent in a congregation of the Established Church? I have spoken of this to many persons who 35 546 SPEEqHES OF JOHN BRIGHT. differ from me on all these questions of Church estabdshments, Church-rates, and the like ; but I never spoke to any man in the habit of attending the Es tablished Church who did not admit to me that it is one of the things they most deplore, that among the five hun dred persons more or less who attend any particular church there is infinitely less sympathy, co-operation, union, and. power of action than is evinced among the various Dissenting communities in this country almost without exception. But if you had none of these rates to levy by law you would be placed — and it would be a most material advantage — in the same position as are the con gregations of Dissenting bodies. You would be obliged, of course, in the management of your congregational affairs, to consult the members in gene ral ; you would have your monthly or quarterly meetings ; and thus you would know who were your neighbours in church, and you would be united to gether, as Dissenting congregations are. And I maintain that your religious activity and life for all purposes of mis sionary work at home and abroad would be greatly increased and strength ened; and so far your congregations, your ministers, and your churches would be great gainers. Some hon. Gentle men will say that I am a violent parti san on this question, and that I have partaken of the animosity which I stated to have existed in the parish in which I live. I do not deny that in times past I have taken a warm, and it may be occasionally, a too heated part in the contests and discussions on this question ; but, so far as I am con cerned, the feelings engendered by these strifes have been swept away; I am older than I was then ; I make great allowance for men's passions, as I ask that they should make allowance for mine. This question has now come to a crisis ; and 1 ask the House to consider whether it would not be to the advan tage of the Church, of morality, religion, and the public peace, that it should now be set at rest once and for ever. The right hon. and learned Gentleman — it is one of the faults of a high classical education — following the ex ample of the right hon. Gentleman who delighted us all with a brilliant but most illogical speech last night, af frighted us with an account of what took place under the democracies of Greece, and asks us to follow the ex ample of those who were believers in the paganism of ancient Rome. He says, Did not the Roman emperors, consuls, and people go in procession after the vile gods and goddesses which they worshipped ? It is trae they did, and I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman regrets by this time that he asked us to follow an example of that kind. Rome has perished, and the re ligion which it professed has perished with it. The Christian religion is wholly different, and if there be one thing written more legibly than another in every page of that Book on which you profess that your Church is founded, it is that men should be just one to another, kind and brotherly one to another, and should not ask of each other to do that which they are not willing themselves to do. I say that this law of Church-rates is a law which violates, and violates most obviously and outrageously, every law of justice and of mercy which is written in that Book, and it is because I believe it does so that I am certain that if never can be of advantage to your Church, if your Church be a true Church; and, believing that, and feeling how much the interests and sympathies and wishes of millions of our countrymen are in favour of the abolition of this impost, I ask you to do what I am now ready to do — to give a cordial support to the third reading of this Bill of my hon. Friend. LETTER TO DR. GRAY. [The following letter on the Irish Church question was addressed to Dr. Gray, Editor of the Freeman's Journal, now Sir John Gray, M.P., October 25, 1852. The estimate of the property of the Irish Church is probably much too low, but this does not affect the argument, or the principle of the proposed arrangement.] My l>ear Dr. Gray, — I observe from the newspapers that the friends of ' reli gious equality ' in Ireland are about to hold a conference in the city of Dublin with a view to consider the existing ecclesiastical arrangements of your countiy. My engagements will not permit me to be present at your de liberations, and, indeed, I am not sure that your invitations extend further than to Irishmen and Irish representa tives; but I feel strongly disposed to address you on the great question you are about to discuss — a question affect ing the policy and interests of the United Kingdom, but of vital import ance to Ireland. Let me say, in the first place, that I am heartily glad that any number of the Irish representatives should have resolved to grapple with a question which, in my opinion, must be settled on some just basis, if Ireland is ever to become tranquil and content. The case of the Catholic population of Ireland — and, in truth, it is scarcely more their case than that of every intelligent and just Protestant in the three kingdoms — is so strong, so unanswerable, and so generally admitted, tiiat nothing is wanted to insure its complete success but the combination of a few able and honest men to concentrate and direct the opinion which exists. If such men are to be found among you — resolute, , persevering, and disinterested— a great J work is before them, and as certainly a great result. They will meet with in sult and calumny in abundance ; every engine of the ' supremacy ' party will be in motion against them ; they will be denounced as ' conspirators ' against the institutions of the country, when, in fact, they combine only against a griev ance which it is hard to say whether it is more humiliating in Ireland to endure, or disgraceful in England to inflict ; but against all this, having a right cause, and working it by right means, they will certainly succeed. It would be to insult your under standing were I to imagine that you demand anything more or less than a perfect ' equality ' before the law for the religious sects which exist in Ire land—that is, for the members or ad herents of the Protestant Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Roman Catho lic Churches. So entirely is it felt that you are in the right in making this demand, that with regard to it your opponents dare not attempt an argu ment with you ; they prefer to say that you claim something else — namely, a supremacy as hateful as their own, and then they find it easy to contest the matter with you, writing and speaking, as they do, chiefly to a Protestant audience. On this point there should be no possibility of mistake ; and not only should the demand for ' equality ' be unequivocal, but it appears to me most desirable that some mode of attaining it should be distinctly pointed out. We 35—a 54» LETTER OF JOHN BRIGHT OCT. 25, may, perhaps, imagine an ' equality ' which would allow the Protestant Es tablishment to remain as it is, or, at least, to continue to be a State Church, building up at its side a Catholic Es tablishment ; and, to complete the scheme, a Presbyterian Establishment also, having a batch of Catholic pre lates and of Presbyterian divines in the House of Lords ; but, in my opinion, any scheme of ' equality ' of this descrip tion would be, and must necessarily be, altogether impracticable. Lord John Russell, I think in 1843, expressed an opinion that the Protestant Church in Ireland should not be sub verted, ' but that the Roman Catholic Church, with its bishops and clergy, should be placed by the State on a footing of equality with that Church.' He adopted the term ' equality,' and said that any plan he should propose would be ' to follow out that principle of equality, with all its consequences.' Lord Grey, in 1845, was, if possible, still more explicit, for he said, after ex pressing his opinion that ' the Catholics have the first claim' on the funds ap plied to ecclesiastical purposes in Ire land, ¦ you must give the Catholic clergy an equality also in social rank and position ; ' and he went even further than this, and said, 'I carry my view on this subject as far as to wish to see the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church take their places in this House on the episcopal bench.' From this it appears that Lord John Russell and Lord Grey, seeing the enormous evil of the' existing system, were ready to justify almost any measure that pro mised political and ecclesiastical equality to the Irish Catholics ; but they wished that equality to be obtained without the subversion of the Protestant Established Church in Ireland. Of course, if all parties among the statesmen and the public of the United Kingdom were agreed, funds might be provided for the perpetual endowment and subjection to State control of the Irish CatholicandPresbyterian Churches, and some plan might be devised to secure them a representation in the House of Lords ; but, happily for sound prin ciples in civil government, and happily for religion itself, all parties are • not agreed to do this, but are rather agreed that it shad not be done. The ' equality' which Lord John Russell would ' follow out with all its consequences ' is a dream, and Lord Grey's bold idea of giving the Irish Catholics 'the first claim to the funds ' and of placing their bishops in the House of Lords is not less impracticable. To have two Es tablished Churches in Ireland, the one Protestant and the other Catholic; to have in the House of Lords Protestant and Catholic bishops, elbowing each other on the 'right reverend bench,' guarding the temporal and spiritual interests of two Churches which de nounce each other as idolatrous or heretical, would be an inconsistency so glaring, that it would go far to over throw all reverence for Governments or Churches, if not for Christianity itself. The scheme is surely too absurd to be seriously thought of, and if there be a statesman bold enough to propose it, he will find no support in the opinion of the English public, except from that smad section with whom religion goes for nothing, and Churches and priests are tolerated as machinery in the pay and service of the Government. But there is an 'equality' which is attainable without inconsistency, which would meet with favour among large classes in every part of Great Britain, and which, I think, if fairly proposed, would be well received by many of the more enlightened and just Protestants in Ireland. It is an ' equality' which must start from this point, that hence forth there must be no Church in Ireland in connection with the State. The whole body of English Dissenters, the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the Catholic population of the United Kingdom, might be expected cordially to welcome such a proposition ; and it is difficult to understand how the Pres byterians of the North of Ireland, or the Free Church of Scotland, or the I852. TO DR. GRAY. 549 adherents of the Wesleyan Conference in England, could, with any consistency or decency, oppose it ; and I am confi dent that a large number of persons con nected with the Established Churches in the three kingdoms, who are enlight ened enough to see what is right, and just enough to wish it to be done, would give their support to any Minister who had the courage to make such a measure the great distinguishing act of his ad ministration. But, if this principle were adopted — that is, the principle that henceforth there must be no Church in Ireland in connection with the State — there would still be a question as to the appropriation of the large funds now in the hands of the Irish Established Church. There are two modes of dealing with these funds, either of which may be de fended, but one of them seems to offer facilities which do not belong to the other. The most simple plan would be to absorb the revenues of the Estab lished Church as the livings become vacant, and to apply them in some channel not ecclesiastical, in which the whole population of Ireland could par ticipate. The objections to this plan are, that it would be hard upon the Protestant Episcopalians, after having pampered them so long with a munifi cent support, to throw them at once on their resources, and that to withdraw the Regium Donum from the Presby terians of the North, when they have no other provision made for their reli gious wants, would be to create a just discontent among them. There is some force in this, inasmuch as upon one generation would be thrown the burden of the creation and support of a reli gious organisation which, in voluntary churches, is commonly the work of suc cessive generations of their adherents, and the argument may be considered almost irresistible when it is offered to a Government which does not repudiate, but rather cherishes, the principle of a State Church. But whatever may be the inconveniences of this plan, they are, in my estimation, infinitely less than those which are inseparable from a con tinuance of the present system. There is, however, another mode of settlement which, though open - to some objection, is probably more likely to obtain a general concurrence of opinion in its favour in Ireland, and to which, I think, a great amount of consent might be obtained in England and Scotland. Your present ecclesiastical arrangements are briefly these : — The Protestant Epis copal Church has 500,000/. per annum entrusted to it, or a principal sum, at twenty years' purchase, of 10,000,000/. sterling. The Presbyterian Church or Churches have 40,000/. per annum, or, estimated at the same rate, a principal sum of 800,000/. The Roman Catholic Church has 26,000/. per annum, or a principal sum of 520,000/. I will say nothing about the exact proportions of population belonging to each Church, for I do not wish to give opportunity for dispute about figures. It is suffi cient to say, what everybody knows to be trae, that the Irish population is Catholic, and that the Protestants, whether of the Episcopalian or Presby terian Church, or of both united, are a small minority of the Irish people. I will admit the temporary hardship of at once withdrawing from the Pro testant sects all the resources which the State has hitherto provided for them; but, at the same time, no one can deny, and I cannot forget, the hard ship to which the Catholics have been subjected, inasmuch as they, the poorest portion of the people, and by many times the most numerous, have been shut out from almost all participation in the public funds applied to eccle siastical purposes in Ireland. Is it not possible to make an arrangement by which the menaced hardship to the Protestants may be avoided, and that so long endured by the Catholics, in part at least, redressed ? And can this be done without departing from the' principle, ' that henceforth there must be no Church in Ireland in connection with the State ?' Let an Act be passed to establish a ' Church Property Com- 55° LETTER OF JOHN BRIGHT OCT. 25, mission' for Ireland, and let this Com mission hold in trust, for certain pur poses, all the tithes and other property now enjoyed by the Established Church; let it, in fact, become possessed of the 10,000,000/. sterling, the income from which now forms the revenues of that Church, as the livings and benefices become vacant. It would be desirable to offer facilities to the landed pro prietors to purchase the tithes at an easy rate, in order that funds might be in hand to carry out the other ar rangements of the scheme. I have estimated the total value at 10,000,000/.; it might not reach that sum if the tithes were sold at a low rate; but whether it were 10,000,000/. or only 8,000,000/. would not affect the practicability or the justice of this pro position. Let this Commission be em powered and directed to appropriate certain portions of this fund as a free gift to each of the three Churches in Ireland — to the Protestant Episcopa lian, the Presbyterian, and the Roman Catholic Church. Whatever is thus given must be a free gift, and become as much the private property of the respective sects or churches as is the property of the Free Church in Scot land, or that of the Wesleyan Method ists in England. It must no longer be a trust from the State, liable to in terference or recall by the State, or the ' equality' and independence of the Irish sects wid not be secured. There comes now the question of the amounts to be thus given. From some inquiries I have made I have arrived at the conclusion that if in each parish in Ireland there was a house and a small piece of land, say from ten to twenty acres, in the possession of the Roman Catholic Church, that would be all the provision that would be required or wished for, as the general support of its ministers would be derived, as at present, from the voluntary contribu tions of their flocks. There are in round numbers about 1,000 parishes in Ireland. In many of them there is now a provision up to the standard above stated in the possession of the Roman Catholic Church, but I will assume that in all of them such provi sion would have to be made. 1,000/. for each parish, taking one parish with another, would amply make up any de ficiency, and this amount throughout the parishes of Ireland would require the sum of 1,000,000/. sterling to be appropriated from the general fund; and this should be made over abso lutely and for ever to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, in such hands and in such manner as the funds of their Church raised by voluntary effort are usually secured. Under an arrangement of this kind, of course, the special grant to the college of Maynooth would be withdrawn. The Presbyterians, under the operation of this Act, would lose their annual grant of 40,000/. ; but, in place of it, assum ing that they have an organisation and a system of govemment which would enable them to hold and administer funds for the use of their Church, a portion of the general fund should be set apart for them, equal to the produc tion of a revenue of like amount with that they now receive by grant from Parliament. This should also be given to them absolutely and for ever, and they should become henceforth a volun tary and independent Church. The Protestant Episcopalians should be treated as liberady as the Presby terians, with whom, it is estimated, they are about on a par in point of numbers. Assuming that they could and would form themselves into a Free Episcopal Church, the Commis sion would be empowered to grant them a sum equal to that granted to the Presbyterians, and which would be about the same in amount as that granted to the Catholics. And fur ther, so long as they undertook to keep the churches in repair, they might be permitted to retain possession of them at a nominal rent, for their own use only ; and that when or where they had no congregation sufficient to maintain the church, then the buildings should 1852. TO DR. GRAY. 551 be at the disposal of the Commission to let or sell, as might be thought best. In the case of the Protestant Episcopa lians, as with the Presbyterians and the Catholics, whatever sum is given to them must be given absolutely and for ever, that henceforth they may rely on their own resources and become a volun tary and independent Church. The State would thus have distri buted about 3,000,000/. of the original fund, and would have relinquished all claims upon it for ever ; and it would be the duty of the Commission to take care that those grants were applied, in the first instance, for the puiposes and in the manner intended by the Act. The remaining 5,000,000/. or 7,000,000/., as the case might be, might, and in my opinion ought, to be reserved for pur poses strictly Irish, and directed to the educational and moral improvement of the people, without respect to class or creed. This fund would extend and perfect the educational institutions of the country; it would establish and endow free Ubraries in all the chief towns of Ireland, and would dispense blessings in many channels for the free and equal enjoyment of the whole popu lation. Of course there wid be objec tions started to this scheme, as there will be to any scheme which attempts to remedy an injustice which has lasted for centuries. The ' Church party' may, and probably will, denounce it as a plan of spoliation most cruel and unholy; but no man who proposes to remedy Irish ecclesiastical wrongs can expect to find favour with the sect whose supre macy he is compelled to assail. We must hope that State patronage has not so entirely demoralised the members of the Protestant Episcopalian sect, either in England or Ireland, as to leave none among them who are able to see what is just on this question, and who are willing that what is just should be done. I believe there are many intelligent and earnest Churchmen, and some eminent politicians connected with the Estab lished Church, who would welcome almost any proposition which afforded a hope of a final settlement of this question. From Scotland, and probably from certain quarters in England, we may hear of the great crime of handing over 1,000,000/. sterling to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It will, perhaps, be insisted upon, that to add to the means of a Church whose teaching is held to be 'erroneous' is a grievous national sin ; and many will honestly doubt the wisdom of a scheme which proposes such an appropriation of a portion of a great public fund. Now, there is not a man in the United King dom more averse to religious endow ments by the State than I am. I object to the compulsory levying of a tax from any man to teach any religion, and still more to teach a religion in which he does not believe ; and I am of opinion that, to take a Church into the pay of the State, and to place it under the con trol of the State, is to deaden and cor rupt the Church, and to enlist its influ ence on the side of all that is evil in the civil government. But in the plan now suggested the Irish sects or Churches would be left entirely free, as is the Free Church in Scotland, or the Wes leyan Methodist Church in England. The grants once made, each Church would possess absolutely its own funds, just as much as if they were the accu mulations of the voluntary contributions and liberality of past generations of its members, and thus would be avoided the damage to religion and to civil go vernment which is inseparable from what is called the union of Church and State; whilst the sum granted to each Church, being equal to a provi sion of about 40,000/. per annum, would be too small to create any important corporate influence adverse to the pub lic interest. As to the complaint that the sum of 1,000,000/. is proposed to be given to the Irish Catholics, I will ask any man with a head to comprehend and a heart to feel, to read the history of Ireland, not from the time of Henry VIII, but . from the accession of William III, and 55^ LETTER OF JOHN BRIGHT OCT. 25, if he insists upon a settlement of this question by grants to the Protestant sects, and. by the refusal of any corre sponding grant to the Roman Catholics, I can only say that his statesmanship is as wanting in wisdom as his Protest antism lacks the spirit of Christianity. If, for generations, a portion of the Pro testants of Ireland, few in number but possessing much wealth, have enjoyed the large ecclesiastical revenues of a whole kingdom; and if, during the same period, the Roman Catholics, the bulk of the population, but possessing little wealth, have been thrown entirely on their own limited resources, and under circumstances of political and social inferiority, can it be possible, when an attempt shall be made to re medy some of the manifold injustice of past times, that any Englishman or any Scotchman will be found to complain of the impartiality of the Govemment, and, in his zeal for Protestantism, to forget the simple obligations of justice ? But it may be objected that it is con trary to sound policy to make grants of public money to any public body, or corporation, or sect, not submitting to State control — that, in fact, a Church receiving anything from the State should be a State Church. No one is more sensible of the weight and soundness of this argument than I am; but observe the peculiarities of this case. I start from the point that ' henceforth there shall be no Church in Ireland in con nection with the State.' I have to free the Protestant Episcopalian sect and the Presbyterians from their State connec tion ; and to make the Irish sects volun tary Churches for the future. I propose an appropriation of about one-third of existing ecclesiastical property in Ire land, with a view to soften the apparent severity of the change to the sects here tofore paid by the State, and to make some amends to that majority of the Irish population, the injustice of whose past treatment is admitted by all the world. The Protestants of Ireland have done hitherto little for themselves, be cause the bounty of the State has para lysed their exertions, or made exertion unnecessary. The Catholics have done much for themselves; but they are in great poverty, and our existing eccle siastical legislation has been felt, and is now felt, by them to be grievously un just. Would it not be worth the con cession of the sum I have suggested, and of the deviation from ordinary rule which I venture to recommend, to ob tain the grand result which is contem plated by the change now proposed ? I have said that there wid be objections to this scheme and to every scheme. The grievance is centuries old, and around it are , entwined interests, pre judices, fanaticism, animosities, and con victions. It is a desperate evil, and whoever waits till the remedy is plea sant to everybody may and will wait for ever. The object in view is the tranquillity of Ireland. The means are simple, but altogether novel in that un happy country — to do full and impar tial justice to her whole population. I propose to leave the Presbyterians as well circumstanced as they are now, with this exception, that all future ex tension of their organisation must be made at their own cost; and I would place the Protestant Episcopalians in as good a position as the Presbyterians. The Catholics only could have any ground of complaint, owing to their numbers so far exceeding those of the Protestant sects ; but in the application of the remainder, and much the largest portion of the funds, for educational or other puiposes, they would participate exactly in proportion to their numbers ; and I have a strong belief that, so far as they are concerned, such an arrange ment as is now suggested would be accepted as a final settlement of a most difficult and irritating question. As you know, I am neither Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopalian, nor Presbyterian, nor am I an Irishman. My interest in this matter is not local or sectarian. I have endeavoured to study it, and to regard it as becomes an Englishman loving justice and free dom, anxious for the tranquillity of I852. TO DR. GRAY. 553 Ireland, the welfare of the Empire, and the honour of the Imperial Govern ment. I believe that statesmanship does not consist merely in preserving institutions, but rather in adapting them to the wants of nations, and that it is possible so to adapt the institutions of Ireland to the wants and circumstances of Ireland, that her people may become as content as the people of England and Scotland are, with the mild monarchy under which we live. Some experience and much reflection have convinced me that all efforts on behalf of industry and peace in Ireland will be in great part unavailing until we eradicate the senti ment which is universal among her Catholic population — that the Imperial Government is partial, and that to be long to the Roman Catholic Church is to incur the suspicion or the hostility of the law. A trae 'equality' established among the Irish sects would put an end to this pernicious but all-pervading senti ment ; and Catholics, whether priests or laymen, would feel that the last link of their fetters was at length broken. Su premacy on the one hand, and a degrad ing inferiority on the other, would be abolished, and the whole atmosphere of Irish social and political life would be purified. Then, too, Christianity would appeal to the population, not as a per secuting or a persecuted faith, with her features disfigured by the violence of political conflict, but radiant with the divine beauty which belongs to her, and speaking with irresistible force to the hearts and consciences of men. I know not if the statesman be among us who is destined to settle this great question, but whoever he may be he will strengthen the monarchy, earn the grati tude of three kingdoms, and build up for himself a lasting renown. I am sensible that in writing this letter, and in ex pressing the views it contains, I ran the . risk of being misunderstood by some honest men, and may subject myself to misrepresentation and abuse. It is under a solemn sense of duty to my country, and to the interests of justice and reli gion, that I have ventured to write it. I have endeavoured to divest myself of all feeling of preference for, or hostility to, any of the Churches or sects in Ireland, and to form my judgment in this matter upon principles admitted by all true statesmanship, and based on the foundations of Christian justice. If I should succeed in directing the atten tion of any portion of those most deeply interested to some mode of escape from the difficulties with which this question is surrounded, I shall willingly submit to the suspicions or condemnation of those who cannot concur with me in opinion. I wish this long letter were more worthy of its purpose. As it is, I send it to you, and you may make what ever use of it you think wid be likely to serve the cause of ' religious equality' in Ireland. Believe me to be, very traly yours, JOHN BRIGHT. Rochdale, October 25, 1852. -*£¦$*- INDEX. Aberdeen, Lord, anecdote of, 219. Abolitionists in England, 147. Absenteeism, remedy for, 189. Accidents, how they happen to nations, 334 ; political nature of, 355. Acland, Mr., bis 'Imperial Poll-Book,' 394- Acland, Mr. T. D., his candidature at Birmingham, 336. Adams, J. Q., abolitionist, 145. Adams, Mr., his appointment as Minis ter for the United States, 68 ; his arrival, 95. Adderley, Mr., his statement about two provinces in British North America, 81 ; his objections to a 14/. franchise, 362. Addison, anecdote related by, 208. Administrations, what rules them in the House of Commons, 80 ; succes sive, have shown no statesmanship about Ireland, 178. Adullam, cave of, 349. Affghan war, costs of, should have been borne by England, 46; conduct of, 60 ; author of, 104. Africa, supply of cotton from, 106 ; tribes in, and their idols, 458. Agency, legal, hateful system, 402. Agitation, political, patriotism in Ire land, 184; substitute for revolution, 326 ; for reform, what it is, 399. Agricultural distress, Mr. Disraeli's comments on, 422 ; Committee for, refused, 444. ' Agricultural interest,' does not include labourers, 430; is said to suffer dis tress, 431 ; doubtfudy, ib. Agricultural labourer, low condition of, in England, 117; condition of, 449-50. Agricultural meetings, language held at, 443- Agricultural Society, its gifts, 419. Agricultural Societies, long since politi cal, 393. ' Alabama,' case of the, 70, 1 1 1 . ' Alabamas,' builders and abettors of, 127. Alarms, of those who hear the speaker advocate extension of the franchise, 284. Alban's, St., raid on, 65. Algiers, occupation of, by France, as violent as that of Principalities by Russia, 232. Alien Bill, proposed, 93. Aliens, proceeding of House of Com mons in case of, 526. Allegiance, Oath of, taken by House of Commons, 180. Alliances dangerous, friendships prefer able, 238. Ambition, when honest, valuable, 453. Amendments, in Bills of Supply, power of Lords to make, 492. America, future prospects of, 139. American colonies, population of, before War of Independence, 86. American lakes and Black Sea, no analogy between, 268. American nation, jealousy of, in Great Britain, 75 ; not likely to be ' de stroyed,' 123. American people, naturally irritable, 95 ; their irritation indicates their appreciation of English opinion, 96 ; hopes and future of, 114. American Union, high aims of, in the sacrifices of the war, 73. American war, opinions on, divided in England, no; impossible to enter tain mere neutrality on, 122. 556 INDEX. Americanizing, fear of, by bewildered Reformers, 289. Americanizing institutions, phrase of some cunning knave, intended to catch simple dupes, 300. Amphibious, reports of the Bishop of London being, 521. Annexation, policy of, 47. Annexations in India, 24. Anonymous writing, speaker's opinions on, 448. Aprd 10, 1848, panic on, or before, 327- Arbitration, should be adopted in claims of the United States, 74. Argyll, Duke of, his speech fair and friendly, 90. Aristocracy, not be thralls of, 421. Aristocracy, absentee, an expression of Mr. Disraeli, 201. Aristocracy, British, some members of the, not traitors to freedom, 112. Aristocracy, English, contains worthy men, 198. Aristocracy of land and wealth, usurp power in England, 394. Aristocratical influence, worth nothing in Ireland, 173. Arithmetic, in relation to Reform, dan gerous to Mr. Disraeli, 286. Arundel, representation of, according to Mr. Disraeli, 360. Ashworth, Henry, President of the Chamber of Commerce, Manchester, 104. Astonishment, howl of, at proposals for Reform, 307. Atlantic cable, utterances on Reform like the condition of, 280. Attorney-General, the (Sir R. Palmer), his speech about the ' Alabama,' 71. Auckland, Lord, Governor-General of India, 60. Audience, magnitude of, at Birmingham, 37i- Austin, Mr., his statements about Car marthen in 1834, 323. Austria, declining strength of (1853), 232 ; consequences of her joining Russia (1855), 263. Ayrton, Mr., his Committee rejected voting-papers, 401 ; his opinion on agents, 403. B. Baines, Mr., his statistics on education, S31' Balance of power, omission of, from Mutiny Bill, 221 ; hackneyed term — Turkey has nothing to do with it, 231 ; fruitful cause of war, 232 ; nearly (1865) dead and buried, 331 ; in representation, a phrase of Lord Stanley, 354. Ballot, importance of, in Ireland, 194 ; Mr. Mill's scruples about, 205 ; ad vantages of, in Ireland, ib. ; necessity of, 287; objections to, from County Members, 297; value of, political and moral, 309, 310; to be adopted, after proposal of voting-papers, 400 ; per missive, speaker opposed to, 404. Banbury, election at, 322. Bancroft, Mr., his opinion on the his tory of America, 98 ; his description of a failure in providing a constitu tion for Carolina, 202. Basis, diplomatic, meaning of, 255. Bateson, Mr., his views on the contri bution of Ulster, 165. Bazley, Mr., President of the Chamber of Commerce, Manchester, 104. Beales, Mr., his description of existing representation, 378. Beer-houses, how licensed, 512. Belfast orators, advised enforcement of law, not amendment, 190. Belgium, criminal law of, 505. Benefit of the poor, strolling players acted for, 426. Benett, Mr., his desire that he had been born an agricultural labourer, 419. Benevolence in politics, not worth any thing beside justice, 381. Ben Jonson, quotation from, 365. Bentham, hobgoblin argument, 312. Bentinck, Mr., in die same lobby with the speaker, 77. Bigelow papers quoted, 339, 390. Bill, Reform, speaker has prepared one, 302. Birmingham, Mr. Bright's election at, the speaker's acknowledgment of, 278; scanty representation of, 285; action of, in 1832, 377 ; minority vote in, 409 ; speaker humiliated by INDEX. 557 sitting for, except by the majority, 4T3- Birney, Mr., of Alabama, 145. Birth, monstrous and adulterous, a spiritual peer, 284. Bishops, Lord J. Russell alternately tyrant and vassal of, 517; value of their opinions, 526; their congratu lations on the Government scheme of education, 534. Black Sea, preponderance of Russia in, 256 ; neutral sea, 257. Blair, Mr. Austin, his opinion on capital punishment, 507. Blair, Colonel, his death in the war, 245- Blockade, character of, 120. Blood, English, what, if marked on map of world, 472. Blue Book of Government in 1866, 372. Board of Control, frequent changes in Presidents of, 4. Boasts, uttered by nations, not patriotic, rational, or moral, in. Bond Street, sentiment expressed by a Member of the House in, 94. Bond Street, Old, office in, 326. Booker, Mr., his theories on the fall of rent, 431. Borough franchise, the Bill of 1865, 344 ; should be on a household basis, 391- Boroughs, state of representation of, 295 ; rotten character of, 296 ; dis tribution of representation in, 387. Boroughs, small, scandals of; refuge for political destitutes, 322. Boroughs, Welsh, character of, 323. Boroughs with three Members, 410. Boston (U.S.), report of Chamber of Commerce in, 130. Botanical gardens, notices on, 286. Botany Bay, impression taken by Mr. Lowe and Mr. Marsh, 350; view of Englishmen, should be got rid of, 383- Boundaries, alterations of, suggested by Bill of 1859, 320. Boyle, Colonel, anecdote of; his death, 245.. Bradshaw, a Parliamentary, the lines of which converge in Downing Street, 369- Brazil, supply of cotton from, 106 ; slavery in, threatened, 118. Bribe to another Church, a buttress to Irish, 207. Bright, Mr., his scheme of Indian Go vernment, 105 ; his policy in Par liament, 246. Bristol Banquet, Lord Stanley at, on Irish affairs, 201, 215. British Association, sums expended by the, in Irish relief, 164. Broth, containing half-a-dozen poisonous ingredients, will not make a whole some dish, 390. Brotherton, Mr., his representation of Salford, 522. Broughton, Lord, averse to a Committee on Indian affairs, 2 ; President of Board of Control in Affghan war, 62. Brown, Mr. G., Canadian Minister, 338. Buchanan, Mr., expiry of his office, 129. Buckingham, Duke of, sale of his land in Somerset and consequent benefit, 205. Budget, of 1859, satisfactory, 481. Buffoonery, the, at the Reform Club, 245- Bunting, Mr., his evidence, his politics, 538. Buol, Count, his proposition, 261. Burke, Mr., his opinion in 1791, about Turkey, 231. Burmese war, criticism of, 24. Burnes, Sir Alex., mutilation of his despatches, 59. Buttress to Irish Church in bribe to another Church, 207. Buxton, Mr. C, his scheme, 335. Cabinet, the, some Members of, not traitors to freedom, 112; composition of, 3I5-. Cairns, Sir H. (Lord), his project of Reform, 368. Calamity, political value of, in Great Britain, 105 ; measureless, the Ame rican war, 113. Calcutta, newspapers of, 478. Calne, Mr. Lowe's experiences at, 350 ; retained by Mr. Disraeli in 1859, 360. Cameron, Mr., evidence of, as to Indian 55§ INDEX. law, 9; as to the employment of natives, n. Campbell, Mr., quotation from his work on India, 4 ; on revenue of India, 14. Canada, relations with United States, 65 ; an opportunity for humiliating Great Britain, 73 ; cannot be pro tected against the United States in war, 77 ; no risk of war between the United States and, 78 ; protective system of, ib. ; representation of, based on population, 82 ; defence of, who is to find it, 83 ; cheapness of living in, greater than in England, ib. ; exposed to danger by Irish, 186. Canadian Confederation, magnitude of the scheme, 81. Canadian fortifications, partly to be borne by Canada, 78. Canadian life peerage, not likely to work well, 82. Candidates, pledges of, at hustings, what they are worth, 442. Canning, Lord, proclamation of, 35 ; not likely to do knowingly what was unjust, 39 ; his relations to the Civil Service, 50. Capital, large amount of, necessary in slave labour, 139; amount of, paying legacy duty, in England and Ireland, 167 ; easy migration of, 265. Cardwell, Mr., motion of, regarding the despatch of Lord EUenborough, 34. Carlisle, Earl of, his lecture quoted, 302. Carlow borough, election at, 322. Carlton Club, its agencies, 323. Carmarthen, borough of, 323. Carnage, accompaniment of war, 140. Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald, quota tions from, 531. Catharine, Empress, her Grand Code, 5°5-. Catholic emancipation, the Duke of Wellington's concession of, 396. Catholic priests, suggestions for paying, 160. Catholic University, proposal to endow, 207. Catholics, Irish, should support their own clergy, 150; independence of, and success of voluntary principle among, 543. Cavour, his opinion on the American question, 112. Cecil, Lord Robert, his policy towards United States, 66. See Cranborne, Lord. Ceylon, a precedent for Indian govern ment, 27 ; cost of officials in, low, 48 ; council of, how composed, 55. Chalmers, Dr., his opinion of Com- laws, 384. Chambers of Commerce, urging Go vernment to take possession of Bor neo, 472. Chancellor, Lord, Irish, in 1849, per sonal worthiness of, but timid and inert, 171. Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Glad stone), his speech at Newcastle, 72 ; believed that chances of success to the Northern arms were hopeless, 108 ; his opinion on American war, 113; did understand Irish question in 1865, 178. See Gladstone, Mr. Change, political, induces disturbance, 335 ; no more demanded, if ancient franchise were accorded, 391. Change of opinion, may take place be tween promise and election, 404. Changes, within fifty years (1845), of a material character, 415. Changes, political, within twenty-five years (1843-68), 220. Channing, Dr., in favour of freedom, 145. Chapman, Maria W., her efforts, 14;. Charities, how perverted, 534. Chatterton, quotation from, 297. Cheated, sometimes as pleasant to be, as to cheat, 536. Child, Lydia Maria, her efforts, 145. Children, chief pleasure of domestic life, 141. China, Emperor of, anecdote of, in re lation towards his people, 180. China war, motion on, Mr. Bright not in Parliament during, 353. ' Chivalrous gentlemen,' real mob in the United States, 74. Chobham, camp at, 460. Christianity, unfriendly to war, 464. Christy minstrels, like Lord Derby's Government, 375. Church, is it true that people are against the? 340. INDEX. 559 Church, alien, an expression of Mr. DisraeH, 201. Church, Established, paroxysm of terror of, at 'Papal aggression,' 521 ; influ ence of, favoured by Government plan of education, 534 ; likelihood of her members in England supporting their own worship, 544. Church established in Ireland, case of England and Wales, 194. Church Establishment, Irish, marvel that it is not uprooted (i860), 543. Church, Irish, a foreign Church, 185 ; Lord Stanley's opinion about, 206 ; Lord Mayo would give it a buttress by another bribe, 207; doomed, 208; not worth one good man raising his voice in support of, 521. Church rates, persecution for, in Cam bridge, 151 ; repeal of, accepted in the speaker's own terms, 206 ; course of motion to repeal, 297 ; effect of contests for, in Rochdale, 540 ; plans for abolishing, 541. Church, Scotch, many wish it disestab lished, 210. Cimeter, worship of, among Scythians, , 478-9- 'City,' the, its opinion on political questions, 67. Civil Service, rate of paying, 23. Civil Service of India, facilities for na tives entering, little, 56; overpaid, 48 ; arrogant, 50. Civil war in America, 118; infamous conspiracy against rights of human nature, 119; what may follow after it has ceased, 132 ; character of, 146. Clamour, out of doors, how to be satis fied, 522 ; charged by officials on their opponents, 533. Clarendon, Lord, his expression that the Government ' drifted into ' the Rus sian war, 236; extract from speech of, 254; said that Europe was stand ing on a mine, i. e. Russia, 263 ; invited to take office under Lord Derby, 375. Class against class, much more set by Mr. Lowe and Mr. Marsh, 350. Classes, no such thing as House of, 368. Clay, SirWidiam, his opinions criticised, 259- Clergy, Irish, may be good and pious, but an evil as established, 187 ; in an unfortunate position, 212. Clive, Lord, origin of Indian Govern ment with him, 101. Cobb, Mr., his opinions on reducing all labourers to slavery, 119. Cobden, Mr., the drift of. his speech misinterpreted by Lord Palmerston, 242 ; his opinion on the President of the Board of Works (Sir W. Moles- worth), 266 ; reviled for his theory of non-intervention, 331 ; his offer of office, 339 ; his speech at Rochdale, 446; his power with Government, according to Admiral Napier, 460. Coercion Bills, Irish, in abundance, 178. Collier, Mr. (Sir R.), opinion of, on the 'Alabama,' 112. Colonial Government, improvements in, 476. Colonial Office, hastiness of, in the Con federation, 81. Colonies, Lord Russell found fault with Mr. Bright for objecting to expense of colonies, 91 ; franchise in, 338 ; ex perience of, effects on emigrants, 454. Commercial preponderance, followed by every other, 257. Commission, comparison of, with Com mittee, 503. Commission, Devon, speaker's study of, 199; improvement of Ireland since, 200. Commission, Indian, report of, 8. Commission on Punishment of Death, how it should be constituted, 510. Commission, Royal, of 1850, to inquire into India, not granted, 102 seq. Commissioners, Southern, seizure of, 96. Committee on Game Laws, hopes of speaker that it may be useful, 441 . Committee of House of Commons on Cotton in 1847, 101. Committees of House of Commons, value of, 102 ; what their worth is, 298 ; rarely constituted with fairness, 5°3- Common sense and common honesty, so' called because they are rare, 443. Commons, House of, disavowed the policy of confiscation, 38 ; why so called, 293 ; what it should be, 294 ; 56° INDEX. guarantee of freedom, 340 ; best judge of what is necessary for trade, 496 ; its opinion on the Jew Bill, 526. Company, East India, character of their despatches, 56 ; renewal of charter in 1853, 104. Companies, London, not much good ; might be constrained to sell their land in Ireland, 204. Concession, no use in making, to a bad cause, 125. Confederate loan, character and ends of, 127. Confiscation in Oude, 35. Conquest, belief of some that it pro motes trade, 472. Conscription, necessity of, which should call out Mr. Roebuck, 138. Conservatism, national peril, 341. Conservative, resistance not always, 328; foundation of revolution has been laid by those who pretend to be spe cially, 358. Conservative party, in House of Com mons, toast at Torquay, 341 ; bound to support the Bill of 1866, 369; always despairing, 542. Conservatives, incompetency and hu mility of, 314. Consolidated fund, proposed to put local taxation on, 433. Conspiracy, if dirty, the dirt was that of Lord Stanley and his friends, 354; alternative to, open . demonstration, 393- Conspiracy Bill, voting on, 353. Constantinople, focus of intrigues and factions, 226. Constituencies, great borough, have effected reforms, 383. Constitution, of England, not enjoyed by the people, 116; security of in England, but sorrows under in Ire land, 175 ; who were real framers of it, 352 ; has no more regard to Crown and aristocracy than it has to the people, 374. Constitution, British, what is it ? 294. Continental war, effects of, 463. Control, Board of, mischievous charac ter of, 19. Com-laws, repeal of, how brought about, 296; why repealed, 367; how treated by Parliament, 380 ; circum stances of, 396 ; attempt to re-impose, impracticable, 428 ; action of the Times about, 455. Corruption of existing representation, 379- Cotton, growth of, cause why slavery was maintained, 87 ; could not have been produced under Indian govern ment, 101 ; supply of, from United States, ib. ; that in the United States (1862) less than expected, 106; no more will be grown by slave labour, ib. ; deficiency of, ib. ; slow growth of supply, ib. ; permission given by United States to export, 1 20 ; de struction of, by Southern commanders, 127 ; nearly ninety per cent, of, from Southern States, 1 30 ; increase of, in America, when slavery is abolished, 133 ; Mr. Bright's interest in it, Lord R. Cecil's prodigious interest in it, 138; supply of, insecure under slavery, ib. Cotton district, area of, small, 130. Cotton famine, extent of, 100. Cotton industry an insecure foundation, 131- Cotton supply, prospects of, under free labour, 139. Cotton, Colonel, despatch of, in 1849, 9. Cotton, Sir Arthur, his suggestions in Manchester, 105. Council, nominated by Governor-Gene ral in Canada, 82. Counties, franchise in, no reason why not as extensive as in boroughs, 285 ; increase should be given to, 357. County elections, costs of, 402. County franchise, in the Bill of 1865, 344; deplorable condition of, 388. County voters, should be resident in them, 400. Country, the, capable of producing great warriors, 464. Country party, difficult for them to frame a Reform Bill, 321. Covenanted service of India, nature of, 2. Coventry, borough of, 326. Cranborne, Lord, his unsleeping ill-will, 72 ; his objection to working-men being called our own flesh and blood, INDEX. 56i 390; his defence of voting-papers, 402 ; virtually gives a ballot for rich people, 403; said the magistrate's drawing-room would be the polling- booth, ib. ; perfectly consistent, 407. Crime, absence of, in Ireland, 184 ; state of (1851), 435. Crimea, destructive character of war in, 140 ; sufferings of soldiers in the, 249. Crimean war characterized, 85. Climes, national, for a long period, not to be washed away by an hour's re pentance, 106. Criminal law, improvements in the, 476. Criticism, hostile, of speaker's views on Reform, 293. Crotchety people, introduction of, to House of Commons, 408. Crown, can take no direct part in affairs, 180; convenience, dignity, nobleness of, more fully recognized, 220; re spect entertained for, 293; conflict with, 145 ; independence of,, not at tacked by Papal Bull, 519. Cuba, slavery in, threatened, 118. Cumming, Dr., his advice, 517. Curry powder, commended by Duke of Norfolk, 420. D. Dalhousie, Earl of (Governor-General of India), value of his opinion on India, 3 ; end of Indian policy with, 101. Dallas, Mr., his resignation, 68 ; his de parture, 95. Daniel the prophet, tamed to Jerusalem, 187. Danish question, English Government ought not to meddle with, 190. Dante, quotation from, 190, 479. Darby, Mr., head of Enclosure Commis sion, 319. Davies, Mr., evidence of, as to Guzerat, ,14- Davis, Mr. (President of Southern States^ no knowledge of him, 141. Debt, Indian, 13. Debt, National, some consider an ad- - vantage, 469. Declamation, cataracts of, in House of Commons, 345. Deer, sacred animal, 305. Defence, public duty of, 478. Deficit in Indian revenue, 13. De la Cour, French Ambassador at Con stantinople, his instructions, 242. Delane, Mr. John, editor of the Times, his controversy with Mr. Cobden, 447. Delusion, devilish, that slavery is divine, 146 ; of war panic, 475. Democracy, no fear of, but of claims of people, 341. Demonstrations in London in favour of Reform, 389. Demonstrations, open, alternative to conspiracy, 393. Denmark, policy of Government, about, unsatisfactory to many Liberals, 70 ; risks of war on behalf of, 329. ' Deplorable rubbish,' Bill of 1859 de scribed as, by a speaker, 321. Derby, Lord, doing what Lord North did, 186 ; his opinion on county re presentation, 295 ; his accession to office a declaration of war against the working classes, 374; asked Lord Clarendon to take office under him, 375 ; his statesmanship and patriotism, 389 ; his mission to stem democracy, ib. ; he and his rejected the Reform Bill, 397 ; fomenter of discord, 398 ; his opinion of minority representation, 408 ; his 'leap in the dark,' 412. Derby principle, repudiated in the Co lonies, &c, 376. Development, diplomatic meaning of, 255. Devise, power of, extent it should be, 454. Devon, Lord, his imitation of Mr. Disraeli's language, 332. Dhar, facts in relation to, 50. Dickinson, Mr., Secretary of the Indian Reform Society, referred to, 33. Digestion, formidable and robust, of Torquay gentlemen, 334. Dillon, Mr., his death a loss to Ireland, j83- , . . Diplomacy, what it is, 314. Directors, India, future number of, by Act of 1853, 15. Disaffection, Irish, is wide-spread, 159; 76 562 INDEX. would be cured by possession of land, 204. Disestablishment, speaker's plan of, 210. Disraeli, Mr., his sensible judgment on the American war, 73 ; his diffidence, 77; spoke of 'Confederation' as a matter of extreme urgency, 82 ; la mented that suspension of Habeas Corpus was not perpetual in Ireland, 1 78 ; his description of Irish society, 201 ; differs from Lord Stanley, 215 ; his courage, or some other quality, in saying there is no crisis in Ireland, 218 ; his belief that the Russian was a 'just and unnecessary war,' 224; his phrase, ' the Dutch conquest,' 265 ; his genius, 314 ; his opinion on public expenditure, ib. ; quotation from his speech of February 28, 1859, 359 ; his subtle understanding, 362 ; expec tations as to his Reform podcy, 389 ; his change of vote without change of views, 406 ; thinks that whole com munity should bear part of the bur dens of agriculture, 423 ; his proposal shrouded in mystery and confusion, 424 ; has abandoned Protection, 430 ; admits that fall of rent is no claim for relief, 432 ; convert to Free Trade in 1859, 480; his rejected Budget, 500. Dissenters, why unfriendly to grants for religious purposes, 152; their rela tions to education, 530. Dissolution, should have taken place in 1866, 379. Distribution, Mr. Disraeli's scheme" of, in 1859, 359-60; of voters to repre sentation, 379. Distribution and representation, 282. Distribution of Seats, under Bill of 1865, 354. Division of United States, desired by Mr. Roebuck, 137. Divisions, number of, on Jew Bill, 526. Doctrine, difference of, probably per manent, 525. Dorsetshire, labourers of, as interested in peace as those of Lancashire or Suffolk, 270. Dost Mahommed, Sir A. Burnes, agent at court of, 60. Doubled peerage, and more than doubled pauperism, 332. Drawing-room of magistrates, polling- booth, 403. Drayford, should be Draycot, changes in, 205. Drifted into war with Russia, 97, 315. Droitwich, description of borough of, 320. Drouyn de Lhuys, despatch of, 243. Drunkenness, remedies for, 511 ; habits of, among gentlemen, passed away, 512. Dublin election, committee for, in ferences supplied by, 160. Dunkirk, fortifications of, 487. Dunlop, Mr., motion of, on Affghan war, 54. Dunne, Colonel, his opinion on Irish matters, 169. Durham letter, effects of Lord J. Russell's writing the, 516. Durham, Lord, his opinions on Reform, 308. 'Dutch conquest, the,' phrase of Mr. Disraeli, 265. E. Earthquake, pills good against, 207; its tread inaudible, 456. Eastern question, difference in Cabinet on, 236. Ecclesiastical estabUshments, extent of, in India, 1 2. Ecclesiastical Titles Bid, repudiated by all classes, 521. Education, effect of priesthood on liberty when it interferes with, 534. Education in India, extent of, 12. Egypt, supply of cotton from, 106 ; temples of, for worship of reptiles, 315- Elcho, Lord, ' brimful of enthusiasm for impossible projects,' 221. Election, mode of, in United States, 88. Elections, cost of, 380. Electors, number of, 305 ; number of, introduced by Lord Derby in 1859, 360 ; number of, who poll, 395. Elizabeth, Empress, her edict on capital punishment, 505. Elizabeth, Queen, her principles not to be adopted, 523. EUenborough, Lord, despatch of, 33. INDEX. 5^3 Ellice, Mr., an extraordinary hallucina tion of his, 326. Emigration, ties of, and amount of, 134 ; voluntary, its character, 172 ; amount of (1863), 456. Emigration to free America, amount of, 113 ; amount of, in fifteen years, 117. Emperor of France, his present engage ments (1863), 136. Empire, British, not diminished as to power and authority by being made less, 79. Employers of labour, favour extension of suffrage, 328. Encumbered Estates Bill, delayed, 155. England, general policy of, friendly to the United States, 73; duty of, in American war, to be neutral, 90 ; professes to hate slavery and love free government, ib. ; would certainly fight for Gibraltar, 109 ; causes why some people in, veered round during American war, 129; law of entail less mischievous in, than in Ireland, 161 ; ancient country of Pardaments, 333; under no danger from priest craft, 523. English army in India, when smad, con siderate to natives, 49. English language, durability of, 76. English people, consanguinity of, with United States, 76. English troops, number of, in Canada,83. Englishman, he can always vote except in England, 334. Englishman newspaper, quotation from, 43- ' Enjoyment ' of great revenue, like en joyment of bad health, 473. Entail and settlement, principles of, 157. Entails, mischievous character of, in Ireland, 161, 189. Established Church, relations of people to, 280. Establishment, Irish, absurdity of, 160 ; disendowment of, to what extent, ib. ; a chain, the galling of which is more tormenting than its weight, 187. See Church. Europe, state of, has its bearing on domestic reforms, 328. European population in India, num bers of, 10. Evictions, Ireland land of, 185. Evils of Ireland, two, Establishment and tenure of land, 185. Excises, abolition of, 496. Exeter Hall, bray of, a phrase of Mr. Macaulay, 533. Exhibition of 1851, fears of Duke of Wellington at, 327. Exodus, theories of Sir R. Inglis de rived from, 525. Expenditure, public extent of, 382 ; public attention given to, 428; mag nitude of, 484. Exports, relation of taxation to, 460. F. Failure, Irish Church a, whether con sidered as , a political or religious institution, 217. Families, great, the patronage they enjoy, 295. Famine, Irish, urgency of the, 163. Fancy propositions of Reform, like flash notes, 337. Farm labourers, condition of, 381. Farmers, their organization, 326 ; not in a vicious position by action of free-traders, 434 ; independent, should be encouraged, 438 ; some have lost 500/. a-year by game-preserving, 439 ; pressure of income-tax on, 481. Farmers' friends, false and trae, 438 ; good for fanner when he loses con fidence in, 442. Farmers, Irish, bestowal of proprietary rights on, 202. Fenianism, existence of, a justification for remedial measures, 201 ; would get no sympathy if occupiers in Ire land were owners, 204. Ferment, what causes it, in the countiy, 527. Feudalism unknown in United States, 117 ; force of, in England, 449. ' Filial piety ' of North American pro vinces, 82. Finance, Indian, 12. Fish-hawk, activity of, 316. Fitzgerald, Mr. Seymour, his criticism on government, 68. Fleets, rivalry in building, 486. Fletcher, John (of Madeley), his corre spondence with Wesley, 509. 36—2 564 INDEX. Fluctuation in trade caused by Corn- laws, 420. Food, supply of, hindered by game, 440. Foreign Office, character of, 315; its traditions, 487. Foreign policy, out-door relief to English aristocracy, 330; nugatory character of, 460 ; advantage of, to aristocracy, 470; calamities of, 471-2. Foreign Secretary, the (Lord Russell), negligence of, about the 'Alabama,' 70 ; his speech at Newcastle, 72- Formidable, associations of working- men would be, and therefore recom mended, 392. Forster, Mr. W. E., his opinion of newspapers, 67 ; reference of, to temper of the United States, 74 ; his father's self-sacrifice, 142. Fortifications, naval, in France, 475. Forty shilling freehold, franchise of, should be extended to Scotland, 309. Fox, Chas. Jas., his opinion of Pitt's policy as regards Turkey in 1791, 231; his theory of Reform in 1797, 299 ; his Bill of 1797, 308 ; policy of, 467. France, slow recognition of United States by, 1 10 ; not bitter to Ameri can republic, 137; the originator of troubles at Constantinople, 225; her seizure of Algiers, 232 ; alliance with Great Britain, 474; trade with, its importance, 488. France, Emperor of, his wars, and the opinion of Europe on them, 486. Franchise, borough, effect of Bill of 1859 on, 324. Franchise, lodger, of Bill of 1865, 345 ; necessity of settling it for a long time, 357; never universal in Eng land, 368 ; proportion who possess it, 387. Franchise, parochial, antiquity of, 299. Franchise Bill, brought in first in 1865, 356. Franchises, in Bill of 1865, 344. Franklin, Benjamin, his opinion on virtue, 509. Free Church in Scotland, effects of, 220; success of, 531. Freedom to all men, involved in United States contest, 118; in America, its action on England, 133. Freedom, personal, Irish to be deprived of, by suspending Habeas Corpus, 176; in England, 342. Freeholders, in towns, excluded from county representation by Bid of 1859, 319 ; a diminishing number, 379. Free-trade, meetings in support of, 417. French, the, their desire of peace with England, 487. French dynasties, cost of, to England, 263. French Govemment, the, its good faith in the Commercial Treaty, 501. Frenchman (Montalembert), his opinion on English Parliament, 300. Frenzy, popular, how to deal with, 98. Friend of India, quotations from, 6, 7, 52. Friendship with nations, preferable to alliances, 238. Frontier, Canadian, power of defending it. 77- G. Game-laws, cause of attacks on, 297; grievance of, 381; mischief of, 434; Committee on, moved for by speaker, 439- Garibaldi, opinion of, on American question, 112. Garrison, Mr. Lloyd, his public career, 145 ; his services, 146. Gaul, misery of, in fifth century, drove many to disbelieve in God's provi dence, 167. Genesis, quotations from, by Sir R. Inglis, 525. George Griswold,' the, ship destroyed by the ' Alabama,' 71. Germany, sympathy of, for North, 112 ; fighting for, according to Lord J. Russell, in Russian war, 263. Gibbon, advice given him by Hume, 76. Gibraltar, seizure and retention .of, indefensible, 108 ; Governor of, an irrational man, 259. Gladiator, intellectual, Mr. Lowe, 350. Gladstone, Mr., his hopes frastrated by the Russian war, 236; will not re verse the policy of Sir R. Peel in 1842, 237; supposed to have resisted war INDEX. 5^5 with Germany, 339 ; his statement that the power of the working-classes was diminishing, 363 ; his calculation as to addition of working-men, 372 ; his financial policy satisfactory, 481 ; charges against him as a finance min ister, 500 ; the benefits of his financial policy, 501. Glasgow, poor-rate in (1848), 164; sympathy of, with Ireland, 195. Goderich, Lord, referred to, 34, 37. Golden-square, Archbishop of, 521. Gortchakoff, Prince, his arguments about the guarantee, 256 ; his words at Vienna, 260. Government, seldom defender of free dom, 142; negligent of Ireland, 159; speaks with a different voice from night to night, 214; its statement (1854) delusive, and worthy of a harsher word, 244 ; necessity of strong one in 1855, 248; of 1852, how broken up, 321; present (Nov. 1866), reputed to be engaged with Reform, 389 ; corrupted' by enormous revenues, 473; embarrassment of (.l853). 459- Government, English, unfriendly feel ing of, to the United States, 69 ; mischievous action of, 134. Government and Opposition, reciprocal kind offices of, 80. Government which is not a govem ment, 215. Governor-General, reasons for abolish ing office of, 24; unable to really comprehend India, 53. Governor-General of Canada, nominates Senate, 82. Governors of dependencies, how they are to be considered and treated, 40. Graham, Sir James, his opinion of Indian reform, 19; his contempt for the Liverpool petitioners of 1848, 94; his candour about the Russian war, 97. Grants, amount of, for education, 535. Gray, Dr. (Sir John), letter to, on Irish Church, 547 sqq. ; see 209. Great Britain, condition of industry in (1855), 250. ' Great ruler of France,' phrase of Mr. Roebuck, 136. Greatness, national, what constitutes, 75- Greece, claim on, on behalf of Don Pacifico, 103; recognition of, slow, no. Greeley, Horace, his career, 145. Grey, Lord, his theory of Reform in 1797, 299; his Bill of 1797, 308; his demeanour, when dealing with Reform, 333 ; policy of, 467. Grey, Lord (the younger), his plan, 335. . Grey, Sir G., spoken before to same effect as now (on Ireland), 177; when Secretary in 1848, a great panic, 327. Grievance of working-men, what is it? 394. Grimke, Sarah and Angelina, their labours against slavery, 145. Grosvenor, Lord, scope of his motion, 354- Grouse, sacred animal, 305. Guarantee, territorial, what was the, in the Russian war, 256. H. Habeas Corpus, suspended, but also in Ireland, 93 ; suspended for three years in Ireland (March, 1868), 200; sus pended in Ireland by successive Go vernments, 218.. Halliday, Mr., his authority quoted as to Indian police, 2 1 ; his opinion on the police of Bengal, 53. Hamilton, Lord C, animated and angry, 204. Hamilton, Mr., says no over-population in Ireland, 173. Harcourt, Admiral, selection of, as person to transport Cardinal Wise man, 517. Hardy, Mr. G., differs from Lord Stanley, 215; his fears of volun taryism, 219; able and admirable speech of, about Danish war, 330. Hare, Mr., his scheme for representing minorities, 407. Haiwich, borough of, election at, 322. Hayes, Mr., his statements about the settlement of land, 163. Hebrews, Epistle to, quoted, 146. Henley, Mr., his opinion on numerous 566 INDEX. Reform Bills, 358; quotation from his speech, 362. Hennessy, Mr., is in confidence of the Emperor and acquainted with his plans, 136. Heptarchy, no one would restore, why then should the United States its parallel? 92 ; not the commencement of the voluntary system, 531. Herald, New York, mischievous aims of, 95- Herries, Mr., opinions of, quoted by Lord J. Russell, 2 ; shakes his head at everything said on Liberal side of the House, 433. Hobgoblin argument, the, 220, 495. Hobhouse, Sir J. (Lord Broughton), opposed a Commission to inquire into India, 103 ; the kind of man who is made a Minister, illustrated in him, 104. Hole in coat, lasts longer than patch, 388. Holland, Lord, his opinion about Tur key in 1828, 232. Homestead Act, the, of the United States, 73, 457. Hook, Dr., his statistics on education, 53i- Homcastle, Mr., his efforts against game-preserving, 437. Horsman, Mr., his alliance with Mr. Lowe, 350; on constitutional rights, 352 ; his inconsistency in dealing with the Budget of i860, 489 ; his opinion as to the extreme value of the House of Lords, ib. Hour and man, present and needed, 172. House of Commons, which rale, it or Administration? 80; more than one- half elected by one-sixth of enfran chised, 294 ; becomes deputy of House of Lords, 296 ; motives which induce people to seek a seat in, 306 ; how elected, 376^ that of 1866, not to be trusted, 398 ; its vote of more importance than that of House of Lords, 408; duties and responsibili ties of, 413. See Commons. House of Lords, toast at Torquay, not Conservative party in, 341 ; its action on minority scheme, 413 ; their action - on the paper-duty, harsh, 497. See Lords, Peers. Household franchise, ancient, of the people, 352;- basis of a Reform Bill, 391- Hume, David, his advice to Gibbon, 76. Hume, Mr., his resolution of 1848, 256. Hungary, received no sympathy from Lord Palmerston, 254; Lord Pal merston's treatment of, 462. Huntingdon, not centre of political life, 412. Idleness, of Irish, forced, 155. Idols, numerous, in African tribes, 458. Ill feeling between England and Ame rica, causes of, 115. Imperial Govemment, object of hatred to Irish, 187. Income-tax, not to be substituted for rate in aid, 166; doubled during Russian war but not doubled result, 236; incidence of, 281; hateful and unjust, 481. Independence, War of, what was the question in it, 88. Independence of Canada, more digni fied position, 83. India, speech of Sir Charles Wood, 1 ; vacillation of Government on mea sures for, ib. ; legislation on, proposed by Lord J. Russell in 1853, 2 ; pa tronage system and covenanted ser vice, character of, ib. ; state of, on the evidence of a private letter, 9 ; justice, administration of, in, ib. ; European population of, 10; trade of, with Great Britain, ib. ; education in, 1 2 ; ecclesiastical establishments in, Hb. ; finance of, loans of, ib. ; debt of, 13; deficit in revenue of, ib.; results of the Government policy predicted, 16 ; Bill of 1858, 18; deficiency of roads in, 22 ; finances of, ib. ; loans of, ib. ; population of, 23; languages in, 25; impossible to always retain it, 28 ; proper policy towards, 30; native princes of, tricked out of their terri tories, 31 ; Court of Appeal for, necessary, ib. ; commission of inquiry into, necessary, ib. ; people of, know INDEX. 5^7 little of parliamentary debates, 34 executions in, 43 ; Loan Bill of 1859 45 seq. ; deficits in revenue of, ib, debt of, 46 ; cost of army in, great, 47 ; amount of troops in (1859), 48 -want of confidence between Euro peans and natives, 49; magistrates in, always moving, 53 ; police of, worthless, ib. ; policy for, to de centralize govemment, 54; scheme for government of, ib. ; effect of read ing Queen's proclamation in, 56 ; duty of England to, 58; origin of our government in, 101 ; hopes of cotton from, ib. ; plan of stimulating supply of cotton from, 106 ; commis sion to, on cotton supply, thwarted by the folly of a foolish Minister, 138 ; risks of, from Russia, 462 ; king doms in, seized, 471. India, Government of, irresponsible in its character, 3 ; changes of, from 178410 1853,4; what it should be, 19; policy of, fatal to cotton grow ing, 101. Indian mutiny, characterized, 85. Indian reform, real authors of, 105; Indian trade, monopoly of, 101. Indians, Red, tribe of, subscribed to Irish relief, 174. 'Influential classes,' mischievous action of, 134- . Inglis, Sir R., his quotations from Genesis, 506; his honesty and con sistency, 525; origin of his political morality, ib. ; his feedngs towards the Govemment scheme of educa tion, 534. Inheritance, law of, 281. Insanity feigned by the Syrian monk, 521. Inspectors, School, how appointed, 533. Institutions, how rendered safe, 339. Insurrection, chronic in Ireland, 177. Insurrection of slaves, impossible in Southern States, 132. Interest on money invested in land, 432. Intervention, generally calamitous, 239 ; Peace Society hostile to, 461 ; various kinds of, ib. ; futility of, ib. Intestacy, division of estates under, 450. Intestate estates, how to deal with, 171. Intrigues against Bill of 1866, 373. Invasion of Rome agreed to by Great Britain, 519. Inventions introduced from America, 301. Ireland, crime and outrage in, action of Govemment towards, justified, 153; public sentiment in, degraded, ib.; misgovemment, all parties culpable for, 154; difficulty of giving relief to, 158; remedies for, 159; tenure of land in, how to be reformed, 161 ; should be treated as part of England, ib. ; Committee on, recommended rate in aid, 163 ; amount of aid contri buted to, 164; calamities of, true authors of, if existent, 166 ; wretched ness of, 167 ; evils of, extravagance of proprietors, life interests in, 169; how to buy land in, 170; state of, 172; overpopulation of, denied by Messrs. Hamilton and Twisleton, 173; in terest of speaker in, 176; people of would, if they could, unmoor it, and take it 2,000 miles away, 177 ! for sixty-five years only three Irish re forms effected, ib. ; constantly insulted for sixty-five years, 178; suspension of Habeas Corpus in, no remedy for disaffection, 181 ; wrongs of, support ed by one who is great on wrongs of Poland, 186; future of, in obedience to justice, 190 ; representation of, de scribed, 193-4; acknowledgment of speaker's sympathy for, 196 ; earth quake in, in Fenianism, 208 ; accord ing to Lord Stanley, in a painful and dangerous condition, 215; improved feeling in (1868), 222; condition of, not desirable for imitation in Eng land, 394; favoured field for policy of Tory party, 397 ; no sympathy of Mr. Disraeli with, 425 ; Ecclesiastical Titles Bill widened gulf between, and England, 520. Irish, the, war party in the United States, 74; influence of, in United States, .159; generosity and fidelity of people to their Church, 210. Irish in America, influence of, 179 ; edu cation of, ib. ; hatred to England of, 180; remittances of, to Ireland, 184. Irish Church, religious or political insti tution, 216. 568 INDEX. Irish difficulty, permanent character of the, 161. Irish Episcopalians, some favourable to disestablishment, 219. Irish Establishment, root of ad evfls, 1 50. Irish matters occupied session of 1849, 166. Irish Members fail to bring forward remedies, 154; seldom discuss ques tions affecting Great Britain, 543. Irish people, idle and starving, 155 ; free from crime, industrious, joyous, cheer ful, grateful, 177; turn to America, 187. Irish policy of Lord Mayo, grotesque and imbecile, 207. Irish proprietors, extravagant, 169. Irish question, treatment of, force and alms, 166. Irish representation, a fraud, 160. Irish session of Parliament should be held, 180. Issachar, the middle class in position of, 388. Italian war, aduded to, 85. Jackals, like place-hunters, 470. Jefferson, Mr., his opinion of slavery, and the causes which kept it up, 87 ; his opinion on newspapers, 122; his abolition of primogeniture and entail, 45 1- Jervois, Colonel, his report on defences of Canada, 64. Jew Bill, why the speaker did not earlier address the House on, 524. Judges, opinions of the, in relation to punishment of death, 503 ; their par liamentary antecedents, 509; their attachment to existing laws, 510. Jugglers, minority representation like tricks of, 411. Justice, duty to do, by the people and priests in Ireland, 208; worth more than benevolence, 382 ; impossible from a class, ib. K. Kars, defence of, 287. Kaye, Mr., quotations from his work on India, 4, 5 ; on revenue of India, 14. Kidderminster, Mr. Lowe at, 350. Kilkenny, Parliament of, 184. Kinglake, Mr., his travels, 470. Kistna embankment, 8. Kossuth, his opinion on the American question, 112. Labour, plan recommended for, by Southern politicians, 119; contrast between, in Free and Slave States, 126; not honourable in Southern States, 131 ; low wages of, in Ireland, 167; property of poor man, 173. Xatiour, free, could not go to Southern States, 139. Labourer, agricultural, his condition, 419 ; farmers interested in prosperity of, 440 ; wages of, 456. Laird, Mr., language of, about the 'Alabama,' 70; violated neutrality of the country, ib. Lake, French, the Mediterranean, by occupation of Algiers, might have been said to have become by alarm ists, 232. Lancashire, orderly conduct of people in, during cotton famine, 100; effects on, of war, 127 ; supply of cotton to, from Southern States, 1 30 ; cotton in dustry in, sufferings of, 1 33 ; overran with Irish pauperism, 157; state of trade in (1854), 237; endurance of people in, 477. Land, proprietorship of, confers poli tical power, 156 ; reforms in convey ance of, ib.; tying up of, cause of Irish misery, 168 ; sale of, difficulties in, should be removed, 171 ; owner ship of, in Ireland, by confiscation, 187; mistake to think it should be property of rich only, 202 ; in Eng land and Scotland, how distributed, 381 ; interest on money invested in, 431 ; succession to, duties on, 483. Land Improvement Company, legisla ture ready to charter in Ireland, not in England, 168. Land laws, alterations in, 313. Land question, Irish, how to be setded, 161 ; never yet before English nation, 195- INDEX. 569 Land system, Irish, plan to modify, 196-7. Landed gentlemen, terror of, not wise, 455- Landlord rule, effects of, 41 7. Landlord and tenant in Ireland, rela tions of, 155. Landlords, Irish, have mistaken their own interest, 203. Landowner, his fortunate condition, 448. Landowner, Irish, creature of conquest, 185 ; hated, 188. Landowners, difficulties among, how accounted for, 431 ; by limiting the supply of food, responsible for evil of Game-laws, 440. Languages in India, numerous, 25. Lansdowne, Lord, his nomination of Mr. Lowe, 350. Land debate, Mr. Bramston's part in, 416. Law, international, what is it ? 96. Laws in America based on those of United Kingdom, 116. Lawson, Mr., proposals of, in his Per missive Bill, 512. Layard, Mr., his belief that the countiy was in a ' triumphant position' in de claring war against Russia, 224. League, Anti Corn-law, O'Connell's assistance to, 196 ; threatened to purchase freeholds, 401 ; Council of, its agency, 415 ; funds of, 421. Leases, uncommon in Ireland, especially to Catholics, 187; customary dura tion of Irish, 203. Legacy duty, different on real and per sonal property, 281. Legacy duties, unfairness in, incidence of, 482. Legislation, should not be of rich for poor, or poor for rich, but all for all, 383 ; inequadties of, 417 ; special, on intoxicating liquors, 512. Legislature, unworthy of trust, if it cannot discover remedy for evils, 201. Leviticus, opinions of Sir R. IngUs de rived from, 525. Lewis, Mr. J. S., his opinion on capital punishment, 507. Lewis, Sir G. C, his address to his Radnor constituents, 266. Liberal party, in Ireland and England should be united, 196 ; creed of, the speaker's sentiments, 468. Liberation Society, assaults of, do not cause suffering to English Church, 220. Liberty, representative institutions ne cessary to, 304 ; invaded by adding to powers of a priesthood in educa tion, 534. Licences for selling drink yearly, 513. Life interests, how to deal with, 172. Lincoln, President, favourable to peace, 67 ; his unchanging wish to continue friendly relations, ib. ; his second election, 73 ; his newspaper enemies, 95 ; unlikelihood that he would quarrel with England, 97 ; justification of his policy of war, 109 ; accession of, 1 29 ; his party peaceable, 138. Line drawn by Reform Bill, no line drawn by speaker, 298. Literature of England in United States, 116. Littledale, Mr., his circular, 432. Liverpool, petition from, in 1848, 94; burden of Irish pauperism on, 164. Livingstone, Dr., story told by him, 316. Lloyd, Mr., murder of, proof that Ire land is demoralized, 154. Loans, if right in order to improve, may be judicious in order to buy, 202 ; to Irish landlords, nature of, 156. Loans, Indian, 12, 22 ; high rate of in terest for, 46. Locke, his constitution for Carolina, 203. Lodger franchise in Bill of 1865, 346. Lodgers, franchise of, in Scotland, 309. London, Bishop of (Dr. Blomfield), re ported to be amphibious, 521. London press, written for West End people, 113. Looming in the future, imitated from Mr. Disraeli, by Lord Devon, 332. Lords, House of, inactivity of, 68 ; its furtherance of freedom, 283 ; Mr. Horsman's opinion of its value, 489 ; its serenity, 527. Lords Lieutenant, some anxious to be just, 178. INDEX. Losses of life, the, in the Crimean war, 251. Louis of Bavaria, reply of a monk to, 218. Louis Philippe, cause of downfall of, 374- Lovejoy, Elijah P., his self-devotion, 146. ' Low ' view of war, what is it ? 262. Lowe, Mr., his opinion on the defences of Canada, 74 ; his severe criticisms, 202 ; his offensive terms, 208 ; appeal to, for his support of Lord Russell's Reform Bill, 344 ; his opinions on Reform in 1859, 349 ; his alliance with Mr. Horsman, 350; sketch of his political experiences, ib. ; expla nation made to, 353 ; had no con stituency, 373 ; quotations from his speeches, ib. ; passage from his speech should be before all workmen, 377 ; invited to join Lord Derby, 390; his minority plan, 406. ' Lowe theory,' disagreement of facts from, 366. Lowe, Mr., of New York, his losses by the ' Alabama,' 71. Lower classes, term not understood in United States, 1 1 7. Loyalty, origin -of, 180; of Canada, suspected by some to have its price, 83- Lunatic, delusion of, at Derby, 475. Lytton, Sir E., his prediction, 94; his alarmist speeches, 364 ; quotation from, ib. M. Macaulay, Mr. (Lord), Bill of, in 1833, 9,11; his advocacy of the Govern ment scheme of education, 529; his courtesies towards Nonconformists, ' 532- Macclellan, Irish vote for, 74. Mackay, Mr., sent out by Manchester Chamber of Commerce to India, 10, 104. Mackintosh, Sir James, his evidence as to capital punishment, 506. Magistrate, drawing-room of the, poll ing-booth, 403. Magistrates, grant of licences by, 514. Mahometans, condition of the, 516. Majority, election by, for last six hun dred years, 409. Majority in the Lords against abolishing paper-duty, how obtained, 498. Malt-tax, suggestion for repeal of, 426. Manchester, poor-rate in (1848), 164 ; assessment of, ib. ; incidental charges on, 165 ; under minority represen tation worse off than Salford, 410 ; resolutions of meeting at, 412. Mangel-wurzel, recommended to la bourers by some dean, 420. Mangles, Mr., his statements as to the nature of the Indian Government, 5 ; - opinions on Indian reform, 18. Mann, Mr., opinions of, 120. Manners, Lord J., his quotations, cha racter of, 432. Mansion House, built from fines levied on Nonjurors and Dissenters, 516. Manufactures, pressure of income-tax on, 481. Mark-lane Express, its dissatisfaction at Mr. Disraeli's proposals, 426. Marshad, Mr., editor of the Friend of India, 6. Martineau, Harriet, her article of Dec. 1838, 145. Mask, Man in the, misrepresentations of. 453- Mason, Mr., envoy to Great Britain, 121 ; author of Fugitive Slave Law, ib. Maynooth, grant to, speaker's objection to, 149, 208 ; grant to, does not cure discontent, 150; grant to, act of, • must be repealed, 209. Meanness, characterises opinions which suppose England would be greater, if other nations were divided, 94. Mediterranean, a French lake, 462. Meetings, pubdc, friendly to the North, 122; Reform, by whom attended in 1858, 327. Members, Irish, disunited, 190. Menchikoff, Prince, his negotiations with Turkey, 227. Merchants of United States, gifts of, to Lancashire, 115. Metropolitan boroughs, free from riot, 402. INDEX. 571 Mexico, war of United States with, un just and unnecessary, 232. Miall, Mr., his great merits, 209, 543 ; no real cause of catastrophe to the Church, 220. Middle class, it is said, indifferent to Reform, 386 ; now flattered, ib. Miles, Mr., is probably horrified, 301. Military authorities unfit to be trusted to determine amount of necessary forces, 49. Military service in India, cost of. 47. Mill, Mr., his History of British India referred to, 39, 52. Mill, Mr. J. S., his Irish scheme vast and extraordinary, 205 ; his view, in relation to introduction of working- men, 356 ; his support of the mino rity voting, 407. Millions, difficulty of realising such numbers, 117 ; impossible to conceive, 469. Ministry, Lord Derby's, of 1858 ; just to give it a fair trial, 41. Minority, speaker often in, 181 ; Mr. Disraeli's Government leaders of a, 214; how represented, 337 ; member for taking office,, case of, 413. Minority representation, bad precedent to electors, 412. Minority voting, Mr. Lowe's plan of, 406. Minorities, representation of, majority against and for, 407. Mirabeau, his opinion of English cri minal law, 504. Miracle, daily, of nature, and industry, 443- Misery, no necessity for, 195. Mississippi river in Slave States, 93 ; senator from, his opinion of cotton supply under free labour, 139. Mob in America unknown, except among the ' chivalry,' 74. Mogul princes, nature of government by, according to Mr. Kaye, 6. Mohammedans turn to Mecca, 187. Molesworth, Mr., his Histoiy of the Reform Bill, 333. Monck, Lord, Govemor-General of Canada, 65. Monk, the Syrian, story of, 521. Moral government of the world, the speaker believes in, 140. Moral law, in place of Urim and Thum- mim, 479. Morality, basis of national greatness, 478. Morality of recognition, not apparently of much interest to Mr. Roebuck, 140. Morocco, Emperor of, married to an Irish lady, 259; his interests in the diplomatic negotiations, ib.. Mosheim, his account of calamities in Gaul, 167. Mountebank selling pills, 208. Multiplication table, hostility of political opponents renders them unable to understand, 496. Municipal councils, advantage of grant ing licences at discretion of, 514. Murder, many degrees of, 504. Museum, British, defence of, on April 10, 1848, 327. Mutilation of Bumes' despatches, 61. Mutiny Bill, omission of words ' balance of power' from, 221. N. Napier, Admiral Sir Charles, dinner to, on occasion of his appointment to Baltic fleet, 97; his theory of Mr. Cob den's power, 460 ; his war panics, 484. Nashville, correspondent from, 127. Nation, what constitutes, 478. Nationalities, view of this question, as entertained by the people and the Government, 240 ; attempts to revive, by war, 249. Natives of India, not employed by Go vernment, 11. Necker, story of, 270. Negroes in United States, 332' ; not se cessionists, duty towards them, 93. Nesselrode, Count, his interpretation of the Vienna note, 228; his despatch quoted, 242. Newdegate, Mr., his petition about mi nority voting, 409. New Orleans, condition of, 127. Newspaper stamp, proposal to abolish, 236. Newspapers, opinion of the, its value, 67 ; utter ignorance of, in discovering a resemblance between secession and the War of Independence, 88 ; the most 572 INDEX. powerful representative of wealthy opinion, unfair to America and its statesmen, 91 ; what they would have said if the North had acquiesced in secession, 93 ; English Liberal, some of, friendly to slavery, 121 ; Jefferson's opinions on, 122 ; printed by American machines, 301 ; London, urged war on behad of Denmark, 329 ; Protec tionist, abuse United States, 418. New York, people of, speak and read English, 116; podtician of, described, 448. Nobility, position of, if they go against the popular party, 355. Nomination, if no polling, settles elec tion, 411. Nonconformists, generally opposed to Maynooth grant, 152 ; why people are so, 533. Nonjurors, fines levied on the, 516. Norfolk, Duke of, his curry powder plan, 420. Norfolk News of 1859, quotation from, 348. Norman families, cost of maintaining, 473- North, Lord, what he did, now being done by Lord Derby, 186. Northcote, Sir Stafford, his dislike to extending the franchise, 390. Northern States, conscientiously opposed to slavery, 87 ; wholly unprepared for war, 108 ; impossible that they should acquiesce in secession, 1 29. Nova Scotia, unwilling to come into the Confederation, 81. O. Oaths, taken in House of Commons, 525; use of, 528. Oatmeal, dogs fed on, and no doubt wholesome, 315. Occupier at 50/., the least independent elector, 319. O'Connell, desire to deprive him of his organization, 151 ; his powers em ployed in defence of freedom, 196. O'Donoghue, The, speaker voted with, 181. Office, retention of, or secession from, a matter of individual conscience or judgment, 247 ; effect of, on states men, 349 ; people in, charge their opponents with clamour, 533. Officers, great loss of, in Crimean war, 245- Olmiitz note, rejected by our Govern ment, 243. Opium, question and revenue of, 15 ; tax on, 45. Opium war, incapable of justification, 472. Opposition, which is not an Opposi tion, 215; to Bill of 1865, would be strengthened by small boroughs, '357. Otway, Mr., his motion to avoid the words 'balance of power,' 221. Oude, King of, deposed, and indignities offered to his family, 37 ; kingdom of, 36 ; taxes taken from, 37 ; 1,400 forts destroyed in, 49. Owners, large, devouring smad ones, 456. Oxford, Member for (Mr. Cardwell), his defence of the Canadian fortifications, 78 ; his ' glowing language ' about wise men, 82. P. Pacifico, Don, a fraudulent Jew, sup ported in his claims by Lord Palmer ston, 103 ; case of, adusion to, 241. Pakington, Sir J., his projects, 382. Palladio, his design for the Mansion House rejected, 517. Palmerston, Lord, speech of, in which he boasted of name of England, 17 ; India, Bill of, 18 ; his responsibility in relation to Bumes' despatches, 62 ; his policy in relation to his Cabinet, 79 ; his relations towards Don Pacifico, 103 ; his belief in the growing strength of Turkey, 225 ; a monstrous state ment of his, as to the improvement of the Turks, 240 ; achieved a victory in Hampshire which Voltaire failed in, 244 ; the speaker has no wish to see his Government overthrown (1855), 247 ; reasons for this feeling, 249 ; showed no sympathy for Hungary, ib. ; his want of seriousness, 269 ; just and sensible observation of, 327; cartloads of rhetorical rubbish by, on INDEX. 573 proper duties of England, 331 ; might have passed a Reform Bill, 333 ; his not offering the speaker office, 340;, his treatment of Roman Republic, 462 ; of Hungary, ib. Pandemonium, excelled by slaveholding America, 121. Paper-duties, origin of, 495. Paper-duty, remission of, its advantages, 496. Paradise of official men, Downing-street, 369- Paris, accidents in, in 1848, 351. Parliament, Imperial, Irish anxious to shake off rule of, 1 76 ; sitting in Lon don, some Irish have no hope in, 192 ; proof that it does not represent the - nation, 280 ; before 1832, as bad as could be, 380 ; how has it done any good things, 382 ; unreformed, com mitted more outrages than absolute monarchs, 395 ; necessity of maintain ing its privileges, 501 ; Member of, his duty, 522. Parliamentary Candidate Society, Sir E. Lytton a member of, 365. Parliamentary Reform, in England, would aid Ireland, 190; what the Pubdc means by it, 319. Parliaments, England ancient countiy °fi 333- Parochial franchise, ancient and reason able basis for parliamentary suffrage, 284. Party, Irish question should be above, . 179 ; may be made by two men, 350. Patch, does not last as long as a hole, 388. Patriarch, Hebrew, his language about Issachar, 388. Patronage, holy thing, 339. Pauperism, Irish in English towns, 164; more than doubled, 332 ; extent of, 381; magnitude of, 388 ; growth of, 418 ; amount of, 477. Peace, words of, written in every page " of the New Testament, 464. Peace at any price, advocated as the duty of the United States ; war at any cost when England is affected, 92 ; speaker does not discuss, 224. Peace party in United States, what it is, 139. Peasant proprietors, the speaker has no opinion on, 203. Pease, Mr., his experiences of slavery, 141. Peel, General, speech of, about Danish- war, 330 ; his view of a rigid line an error, 368 ; his objection to reduction of the franchise, 390. Peel, Sir Robert, speech of, in 1842, 13 ; his behaviour in relation to the Com mission moved for in 1850, 103 ; his scheme for Ireland, 166; suggested that the Lord Chancellor should be ousted, 171 ; his gravity, and solem nity, when hostilities with the United States were threatening, 245 ; his difficulties in 1845, 416 ; policy of, 467 ; his last speech, ib. Peer, what is his birth and education, 283. Peer, spiritual, of monstrous, of adul terous birth, 284. Peerage, doubled, 332. Peerages, life, rejection of, by the House of Lords, 293. Peers, freely criticise the House of Com mons, 67 ; House of, slowness of the, 282 ; exclusive, and influential, 286 ; cannot be permanent, as an hereditary House, 293 ; their speeches, 485 ; creation of new, 527. See Lords, House of Lords. Pelican, stupidity of, 316. Penn, quotation from, 212 ; his defini tion of freedom, 305, 394. People, exclusion of, from representa tion, 324; progress of, up to 1865, 332 ; if they fix their eyes on House of Commons, who can refuse their demand ? 334 ; intelligence of, ad mitted by Mr. Lowe, 352. Permissive Bill, voting-papers said to be a, but a fallacy, 402. Persecution, advocates of, what they want, 522 ; of Society of Friends, 537. Perspiration, tears of Syrian monk as natural as, 521. Petersfield, case of borough of, 320. Petitions, number of, on Reform Bills, 351- Pills good against the earthquake, 208. Place, Mr. Francis, anecdote of, 351. Place-hunters, like jackals of desert, 470. 574 INDEX. Piatt, Mr., introduced a machine from America, 301. Players, strolling, their performance for benefit of the poor, 426. - Plurality of voting, parochial, for reasons which do not apply to parliamentary, 308. Poland, wrongs of, 186; Lord Russell has no mind to go to war for, 253. Political gains of last twenty-five years (1866) are speaker's political gains, 369- Political meetings, once not allowed in Scotland, 311. Political reasons, high, are curious, 45i- Poll, number of electors who, 394. Polling-booth, magistrate's drawing- room the, 403. Poor-law, Irish, effect of, 154. Poor-rate, decreasing proportion of, borne by land, 433. Pope, the, subscribed to Irish relief, 1 74 ; language of, offensive, but official, 518; the extent of his authority, 523. Popery, haters of, support supremacy of Irish Church, 188. Popularity not to be considered, but wisdom and justice, 238. Population, increase of, from slaves, 131 ; growth of, in Slave States, 138 ; growth of, and Com-laws, 416 ; effects of war on, 478. Population and representation, 281. Portarlington, retained by Mr. Disraeli in 1859, 360. ' Poverty and passion,' phrase of Sir E. Lytton, 364. Power, false to say the middle class have it, 386. Powerful, assertion that states are too, liable to retaliation, in. Precedents, of privilege of the House of Commons, 491 ; of 1407, ib. ; of 1640, 492; of 1671, ib. ; of 1678, 493; of 1691,16.; of 1700, 494; of 1702-1719, ib. Presidencies in India, sketch of, ac cording to speaker, 26. President of United States, his position, 265. Presidential election, highest object of ambition, and reasonably so, 88. Press, mischievous action of, 134; its view about thirty hours of talk, 200. Preston, Mr., his evidence as to effect of the Com-laws, 432. Pretences on behalf of Irish Church, religious or podtical, 216. Priesthood, exercised on education, its effects on liberty, 534. Priests, Irish, desire to tame them, 151 ; charged with causing discontent, falsely, 184. Primogeniture, law of, unnatural and unjust, 161; to be abolished, 171; mischievous in Ireland, 189. Privilege, has sympathies in American war, 125; of House of Commons, 490. Privy Council, grants of, for education, and their distribution, 535. Probate-duty, not extended to land, 482. Proclamation, of neutrality, effects of, 68; that of the 14th of May, circum stances attending, 95 ; of President Lincoln, 141 ; legal and effective, ib. Progress of people, argument in favour of Reform, 299. Property, interference with, in distress, necessary, for labour is property of poor man, 173; test of, in represen tation, 306. Property in land, qualified, 202. Proprietors, Court of, absurd resolution of, 10. Prosperity, increase of, during a genera tion (1859), 324. Protection, delusions of, 476. Protectionist papers, stock-in-trade of, 418. Protectorate, Christian, the, 256. Protestantism, best hopes of, in dis establishing Irish Church, 188. Protestants, ascendant in Ireland, 150; number of, in Ireland, 216. Providence, not the cause of Irish misery, 175 ; strongest cause of dis belief in, the misery of so many, 384. Provisional government, some noble lord perhaps thought the speaker might be a member of, 351. Proxy, use of, in the House of Lords, 283 ; votes by, hateful system, 403. Prussia, changes of land laws in, 188. Pruth, passage of the, 227. Psalms, quotation from, 212. INDEX. 575 Public meetings, perhaps not attracted by speakers, but by sympathy, 122; cannot be held by Conservative party, 367- Punishment of Death, doubtful whether it be deterrent, 505. Punishments, barbarous in England, 54°- Pym, Mr., his statement as to privilege, 492. Q- Queen, the, believed to have been op posed to war with Germany, 329; favourable to Reform, 376. Queensland, supply of cotton from, 106. Questions, unfinished, have no pity for repose of nations, 398. Quorum, in House of Lords, three, 498. R.. Race, no theory of, will account for Irish discontent, 184; horse weighted in, his risks, 265 ; donkey, cumulative vote like, 336. Ram, steam, built by Mr. Laird, 70. Rebellion, American, origin and cha racter of, 119. Recognition of revolted States, in prac tice, dilatory, no; of Southern States, must lead to war, 446. Reform, Parliamentary, interest of Irish in, 195 ; Governments successively pledged to, 279; of House of Com mons, why necessary, 298 ; indiffer ence of people to, 324; voted a nuisance, and people tried to bury it, 333 ; why imperative, 358 ; before 1830, the wisdom of accepting instead of rejecting it, 367. Reform Bill, of no value, unless it be good, 289 ; difficulty for country party to frame one, 321 ; Lord Russell's, its fairness, 343; Lord Russell's, said to be the speaker's recommenda tion, 346 ; of 1859, character of, 344 ; referred to in three Queen's speeches before 1859, 358 ; provisions of, 359 ; of 1866, honest, but needed improve ment, 388 ; of 1866, circumstances of its rejection, 395 ; effect of passing that of 1866, what it would have been, 397. Reform Club, buffoonery at the, 245. Reformers should prepare their own Reform Bid, 290. Regium Donum, in Lord Stanley's opinion, a miserable provision, 207 ; must be withdrawn, 209. Relief, out-door, to aristocracy, foreign policy was, 330; gigantic for aris tocracy, 470. Religion, all Christians of one, 212; ministers of, their duty to people, 383. Rent, fall of, no claim for parliamentary relief, 432. Representation, character of English, hindrance to Irish reforms, 193 ; changes in system of, 221; in other countries, 285 ; enlarged, its effects on constituencies, 383 ; essential to liberty, 394. Representation and distribution, anoma lies of, 282. Representation and population, anoma lies of, 281. Representation and taxation, anomalies of, 282. Representative institutions in Europe, growth of, 341. Reptiles, worship of, in Egypt, analogy to, in Foreign Office, 315. Republic, American, overthrow of, would be fatal to freedom, 113; Roman, treatment of, 462. Republicans, in the United States, anxious for peace, 73- Residuary Church, term applied to Scotch Establishment, 152. Resistance not always Conservative, 328. Resolutions of Lord Palmerston (i860), character of, 489. Responsibility, little of, in high officials, 287. Revenue, vastness of, no proof of public good, 473. Revolution, disestablishment of Irish Church, but bloodless, and full of blessing, 212; proposition to dis establish Irish Church is, according to Mr. Hardy, 215 ; French, an acci dent, 351 ; of 1688, character of, 468 ; Glorious, cost of, since, 473 ; good and holy, if foreign policy could be changed, 475. 576 INDEX. Rich, reasons why they cannot properly care for poor, 383. Richards, Mr., report of, as regards India in 1812, 101. Richmond, capital of Southern Con federacy, 118. Richmond Examiner, chief paper in Southern Confederacy, 118. Rochdale, co-operative societies of, 365 ; speech of Mr. Cobden at, 446. Rodney Stoke, or Stoke Rodney, changes in, 205. Roebuck, Mr., his indiscrimina ting abuse, 72 ; his bitter hostility, 135 ; his pre vious language about the Emperor of the French, 136; allowances for his passion or malice, not for his igno rance, 141 ; has got rid of feelings under which men like to be free, 142 ; as a little David, who vanquished a Whig Goliah, 268. Roman Cathodes, conduct of Dissenters towards their claims, 536. Roman Church, assisted by Irish Esta blishment, 217. Roman Empire, no analogy to be drawn from, 546. Rome, influence of, weakened in all Catholic countries at present, 217; pagan, its history, no model to a Christian people, 478; invasion of, agreed to by Great Britain, 519. Romilly, Sir J., Life of, valuable, 476. Russell, Lord John (Earl Russell), favour able to an inquiry into Indian affairs, 2 ; allusion to Ecclesiastical Titles Bill of, 1 2 ; opinions of, on the Pro clamation of Lord Canning, 39 ; his rebuke to a young Member of the House, 91 ; his statement at New castle, ib. ; proposed to make speak ing against Government and Crown felony in Ireland, 93 ; his Irish pro ject, 209 ; his defence of the Russian war, 226; his mission to Vienna, and the motives attributed to those who sent him, 255; his speech of January 23. l855, 260; said that Russian war was fighting for Germany, 264; his caprices, 268 ; his sympathies with Reform, 283 ; his statements at Liver pool, 301 ; the speaker's supposed relations with, in 1859, 318; his speech at Greenock (1853), 330; the speaker's interviews with, 356; has no fear of freedom, 375 ; ought, in 1866, to have dissolved, 379 ; his dif ficulties in 1845, 416; his promises conditional, 420 ; his speech at Liver pool, delusion therein, 473 ; his mis take in choosing an adviser on the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, 521; his opinions on education, 532. Russell, Mr., quoted as to behaviour of English to natives of India, 29. Russia, emancipation of serfs in, 90; losses of, not counted for anything by some people, 140 ; has reasons to com plain of Turkey, 226 ; still to be left a great empire, which is considerate on the part of Lord Palmerston, 254 ; blood of, is property of, statement of Gortchakoff, 256 ; cannot be taken to Bow-street, 257 ; proposals and concessions of, ib. ; a ' mine ' to Europe, according to Lord Claren don, 263 ; its presumed projects, 462 ; capital punishments almost unknown in, 5°5- Russia, Emperor of, his sincere desire for peace, 229. Russian aggression, will not ready be controlled by the war, 235. Russian funds, price of, in 1854, 241. Russian war, popular, but this no proof of its wisdom, 238 ; poticy and objects of the, 252-3 ; losses in the, 262 ; opinions of the speaker on the, 279. S. Salford, under minority representation better off than Manchester, 410. Salisbury Plain, assembly of people on, 337- Salt, consumption of, in India, 7. Samson Agonistes, quotation from, 1 79. Saturday Review, on agricultural la bourers, 449. Savings, large amount of, among Irish tenants, 204. Savings - bank franchise, mischievous, and criticism of, 347. Scarcity, held by some to be beneficial, 440. Schleswig-Holstein, difficulty of, 256. INDEX. 577 Scholefield, Mr., his relations to Mr. Bright very friendly, 107. Schools and school-houses in the United States, 117. Scipio's tomb, 478. Scotch county, election at, residents beaten by non-residents, 401. Scotch Establishment, view of Lord Aberdeen about, 219. Scotland, churches in, 151 ; law of entail less mischievous in, 161 ; political meetings forbidden in, 311 ; land in, accumulated in few hands, 313; in crease of electors to, by Bill of 1859, 325 ; no sympathy of Mr. Disraeli with, 425 ; voluntary principle in, 531, 544- Scott, General, his opinion on the ' Trent ' affair, 98. Scripture, Protectionists said it was vulgar to quote, 335. Scythians, worship of cimeter among, 478. Search, right of, willingness of the United States to abandon, 98. Sebastopol, taking of, to humble Russia, 254- „ , Secret department, India, character of, 16. Secretary, the Home, his duties, 508. Secretary of Ireland (Sir R. Peel the younger), dared to wish the division of the Republic, 122. Sect, that to which speaker belongs has suffered persecution, 523. Segur, Count, his report of a conversa tion with the Empress Catherine, 505. Seignior, Grand, the, subscribed to Irish redef, 174. Self-respect, means of raising a man, 312. Semmes, Captain, friend of Mr. Laird, 70. Senate for life, in Canada, 82. Senate of United States, compared to House of Lords ; its origin, 492. Senior, Mr., his view of the effects of abolishing hindrances to transfer of land, 172. Sentiment, operation of, in Parliament, 524. Separation, impossible under the geo graphical and political condition of the United States, 92. Sepoy army, numbers of (1859), 48. ' Services,' the, assist the policy of the Governor-General, 25. Session of 1840, almost entirely occupied with Irish matters, 166. Settlements, effect of, upon land, 168. Seymour, Mr. Danby, gave notice of a question on Indian affairs, 2; his speech on the East India Company, 104. S. G. O., excellent letters of, 449. Shaftesbury, Lord, his constitution for Carolina, 203. Shakspeare, his Welshman, 269. Shenstone, quotation from, 365. Sheridan, quotation from, 370. Ships, European, none besides English engaged in breaking blockade, 121. Shore, Mr., quoted as to the deteriora tion of manner of English to natives in India, 29 ; referred to in relation to feelings of India, 50. Shoulders, every Englishman has a Turk on his, 237. Sickness of speaker, the serious, 277. Skibbereen, famine and deaths in, 186. Slanders on people, authors of, 373. Slave labour, of no longer avail for cot ton growing, 106 ; supply of cotton from, insufficient and insecure, 1 30. Slave States, not all in favour of seces sion, 92. Slave trade, United States have repu diated it, 132. Slaveholders, have committed an act of suicide, 446. Slavery, cause of an irrepressible con flict, 86 ; left to each State to settle for itself, 87; real question in the war, 89; characteristics of, no; no apology for refusing to hold com munication with States adopting it, ib. ; blot on the American Republic, 113; destruction of, in United States; destruction elsewhere, 118; atrocities of, 121 ; the seed of peril at the institution of the Republic, 124; atrocious character of, 141 ; irreversibly doomed, 144; that it was a divine institution, a devilish delusion, 146 ; in British dependen cies, 147 ; compensation for, intro duced by Lord Derby, 210. Slaves, numbers of, in United States, 37 '578 INDEX. 131; labour engaged in, ib. ; numbers of, engaged in producing cotton, 138 ; political rights conferred on, 147 ; some, in South Carolina, sub scribed for Irish relief, 1 74. Smith, Adam, hypothesis of his being charged with approving piracy, 447. Smith, Mr. J. B., referred to, 34. Smith, Mr. J. Pye, his opinion on capital punishment, 507. Social influences, used to conciliate Members of the House of Commons, 42. Societies, secret, have existed in Ireland, 185. Society never disturbed incessantly with out cause, 190. Somers, Lord, authority of, 352 ; his view about foreign policy, 468. Sorrows, Ireland a land of many, 190. South American republics, recognition of, no. Southern Confederation, admission of belligerent rights of, hasty, 68. Southern papers, their view of slavery, 126. Southern States, represented in excess in Congress, 88 ; defeated in election, and seceded, ib. ; wished to widen area of slavery, 89 ; disorganisation of, 106 ; people in England generally against at first, 107 ; end of, slavery and its extension, 1 10 ; sympathy for, the origin of, 113 ; committed suicide, and destroyed slavery, ib. ; land in, uncultivated, 138; not in favour of freedom or equality, 142 ; inexpe dient to hastily recognise, 446. Spaniards, patriot, character of, accord ing to Duke of Wellington, 264. Spectator newspaper, the, 335 ; its criti cisms, able but conceited, 454. Spiritual lords, opinions of the, 526. Squires, herd of, 416. Stafford, Mr., of Wexford, story of, 189 ; his opinion on permanent tenure, 204. < Stamps, how to deal with, 172. Standard newspaper, suggestions of, 299. Stanley, Lord, his speech on American affairs judicious, 91 ; his statements at the Bristol banquet, 201 ; his plan about the Irish Church, 206 ; speech of, about Danish war, 330 ; refutation of his inadvertent mis-statements, 353; his reference to balance of power in representation, 354 ; every thing in Lord Stanley's speech unim portant, everything important not trae, 355 ; his speech on Reform said by his party to be unanswerable, 390. Stanley, Mr., in 1791 believed in the growing strength of Turkey, 225. State Churches, experience of, 151. Statesman, time for, in Ireland, 1 74. Statesmanship does not consist in force and repression, 178; art of, to make the least possible jar, 209. St. Domingo, revolt of slaves in, 132. Stephens, Mr., opinions of, 121. Stewart, Mr., evidence of, as to Guzerat, 14. Stirling, execution at, 464. Stockport, state of, in 1842, 170. Stoke-upon-Trent, borough of, 363. Stowed, Rev. Hugh, his views, 522. Straits (Dardanelles), opening of, -effect of, 258. Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, his inter views with the Sultan, 226; secured the rejection of the Menchikoff note, 242 ; his mismanagement in the case of Kars, 287 seq. Subscription in 1846 for Ireland, sources of, 174- Succession-duty, proceeds of, 482. Suffrage, extent of, which speaker ad vocates, 284. Suffolk, agricultural dinners in, do not produce amusing speeches generally, 116. Suitable, a word objected to by Mr. Cairns, 359. Sumner, Mr., scholar and statesman, 145 ; his statement that Black and White are equal in eye of God, 390. Sumter, Fort, attack on, 109. Supremacy, advocates of, support Irish Church, 188 ; Royal, what is it? 518. Supreme Ruler, in the Providence of, the causes and progress of American war, 109. Surat cotton, anecdote describing its quadty, 102. Switzerland, convention held in, 398. INDEX. 579 Sykes, Colonel, Indian statistics of, 9 ; speeches of, in House, 24 ; referred to, 25. Sympathy ..character of the speakers, 236. Sympathy with South, real blame of, 114. Syria, supply of cotton from, 1 06. Talookdars of Oude, confiscation of their estates, 36. Tappan, Arthur and Louis, 145. Tariff in United States, high, but no plea for war, 88 ; origin and history of, ib. ; equally inconvenient to West ern States, 89 ; not contained in the causes of American war, 125. Taxation, not to be treated merely as a sum, but in its proportion to wages and incomes, 22 ; effects of, on poor, 270; test of, in representation, 306; inequality of, 382 ; amount of, an ex travagance, 388 ; what is its relation to value of exports, 460 ; its amount, ib. ; on intoxicating liquors, 512. Taxation, local, report on, 424. Taxation and representation, 282. Taxes, taken from Oude, amount of, 37. Taxes, Indian, character of, 22 ; amount of, as regards cotton, 101. Tear-'em, Mr. Roebuck adopts this patriotic character, 136. Tears of the Syrian monk, as natural as perspiration, 521. Temple Bar, select six hundred and fifty-eight men at it, and get a better Parliament, 380. Tenancy, ridiculous and mischievous stipulations in, 427. Tenant, unsatisfactory position of, 438. Tenant-farmers, deluded by Mr. Disraeli, 427. Tenantry, unsuspecting and confiding, 439. Terrier, Scotch, comparison of, to a party of two, 350. Territorial families, enthroned by Revo lution of 1688, 468. Thompson, George, advocate of freedom to slaves, 147. Throne, Lord Derby a weakness to, 397- Thurles, Synod of, Lord J. Russell's ob jections to, 517. Tim Bobbin, works of, 116. Times, the, would not countenance a secession or insurrection in Ireland, 92 ; its attempt to poison minds, 95 ; absurdly argues that the Washington Govemment wishes to quarrel with England, 97; powerful language of, about Turkey, 241 ; its views on the Vienna Conferences, 255 ; blew the flames of war, 260 ; on the ballot, its inconsistency, 287 ; Mr. Lowe's con nection with, 373; approves of Mr. Lowe's theory, 374; comment on Mr. Bright's speech at Rochdale, 447 ; de scribed, 448 ; abused Messrs. Cobden and Bright before the Corn-laws were repealed, 455 ; its attacks on the French Emperor, 485, Tithes, spoken of in county meetings in violent language, 426. Titles of land in Ireland, should be sim plified, 156. Tories, their fear of Reform, 333. Torquay dinner, toasts at, 332, 341 ; climate of, relaxing, 334. Tory Government, capacious internal cavity of, 390. Tory party, the turbulent party, 396. Trade Societies, purposes of, 1 26. Trades and Friendly Societies, organi zation of, would be eminently suc cessful, 392. Trades' Unions, meeting of, 124. Travel, not necessary always in order to know needs of a countiy, 198. Treaties, number of, 471. Treaty, French, the way it was traduced, 500. ' Trent,' the affair of the, 69 ; its effect on English mind, 108 ; seizure of Commissioners in, impolitic and bad, 96. Trevelyan, Sir C, his appointment good, 52- Triumph, of North, what its value is, 144; of United States over passion, 146. Trowsers, Turks have begun to wear, and the only sign of their improve ment, 241. Turbulent party, the Tory party is, 396. 37—2 58o INDEX. Turk, every Englishman has a Turk on his shoulders, 237. Turkey, sympathy with, 225 ; successive losses of, 226; how they came to de clare war, 228 ; independence of, how affected, 234; conservation of, cause of Russian war, 253; custom in, 451. Turkish question, three plans for deating with, 229. Turks, last persons to whom the speaker would trust the' interests of England, 229. Tuscany, punishment of death in, 505. Twisleton, Mr., his opinion on the Stockport people, 165 ; resignation of, ib.; denies that there is over population in Ireland, 173. Two-thirds vote, on Permissive Bill, ob jections to, 513. Tyrrell, Sir J., his language, 416. U. Ulster, condition of, 165 ; has opposed Reform, 166 ; people of, say that we shall weaken the Union, 173. Unchristianismg Parliament, origin of the phrase, 524. Underhill, Mr., his evidence on the changes of officials in India, 53. Unenfranchised, condition of the, 375. Un-English, abuse of word, 466. Unfinished questions. ' have no pity on repose of nations,' 398. Uniformity of franchise not necessarily desirable, 325. Union, of Great Britain and Ireland, no advantage gained to, by Establish ment, 217; with Ulster, not really with Ireland, 174; obtained by worst means, 177. ¦ Unions in southern counties, to abstain from northern produce, absurd state ment of Standard, 427. United States, relation of, to Canada and the United Kingdom, 65 ; des patch of, about the 'Trent' affair, 69 ; good-will of the English people to, 72 ; war party in, the Irish, 74 ; pecuniary claims of, ib. ; jealousy of English politicians toward, 75 ; popu lation of, ib. ; system of representation in, 82 ; contains no party anxious to annex Canada, 83; Transatlantic Eng lish nation, 85 ; great social progress of, 86 ; religious tone of, ib. ; officials of, conspired against the Union, 90 ; division of, desired by some, 94 ; ori gin of, 98; advantages in, 113; ark of refuge to Europe, 116; incapable of aggression, 137 ; war of, with Mex ico, to be condemned, 232 ; great growth of, 233 ; position of President of, 265 ; condition of things in, 290 ; importations from, welcomed, except politics, 3or; dislike of allusion to, 338 ; negroes will have privileges in, 368 ; abuse of, by Protectionists, 418 ; what do they offer? 457; position of religious bodies in, 533. United States Minister, Mr. Adams, his family in the United States, 109. Universities, representatives of, their counsels, 290 ; system of voting- papers at, success of the, 401. Urim and Thummim, moral law in place of, 479. V. Vicars-apostolic, change from, to bishops, character of, 518. Vicovich, instructed by Russian Govern ment, 60. Victor Hugo, his opinion of the Ame rican question, 112. Vienna, negotiations at, basis of the, 248. Vienna note, criticism of the, 227. Voice, different from night to night, of Mr. Disraeli's Govemment, 214. Volcano, speaker warns them that the claims of the people are dke, 396. ¦ Voltaire, his opinion of English criminal law, 504. Voluntary Churches, three in Ireland simultaneously, 211. Voluntary effort in education, extent of, 53° sqq- Voluntary principle, advantages of, 545. Voluntaryism, its progress alarms Mr. Hardy, 219. Voters, proportion of, to grown men, 379- Voting, open, the value of, 401. Voting-papers, traffic in, 403. INDEX. 58l w. Wakefield, borough of, 363. Wales, voluntary principle in, 544. Walpole, Mr., his affection for small boroughs, 322; his desire to get rid of Reform, 326 ; his speech and letter to Lord Derby, 362. Walpole, Sir R., policy of, 467. War, always discussed by the speaker on grounds universally acknowledged, 92 ; opinions on the wickedness of, not compromised in advocacy of the North, 125; speaker does not justify, but treats it on generally received principles, 129; description of, 463; its modem character and its costliness, 486. War at any cost, advocated by writers when England is concerned, ' peace at any price ' when United States are, 92. War panics, frequent, the, 484. War with United States, effects of, 142. Warnings uttered by speaker on the second reading of Bill of 1866, 371. Wars, British, character of, 468. Washington, city of, in a Slave State, 93- Washington, Gen., his opinion of foreign allies, 235. Waste lands, how to deal with, 172. Waterford, election for, disorderly, 205. Watkin, Mr. Absalom, letter of Mr. Bright to, 271 sqq. Weed that pollutes the air, Irish Church a, 223. Weedon, book-keeping at, 474. Weller, Mr., his proposition like that of Lord Grey, 336. Wellington, Duke of, his opinion of the Spanish patriots, 264 ; his alarms during the Exhibition of 1851, 327; his answer to Mr. Place, 351; his concession in 1829, 396. Wesley, Charles, his letter to Fletcher of Madeley, 509. Wesley, John, hypothesis of his en couraging drunkenness and profanity, 447- Wesleyans, negotiations with, 535 ; pe culiarities of, 539 ; statistics of, ib. Western Times, quoted, 443. Western World, The, by Mr. Mackay, 104. Westminster Review, article in, for De cember 1838, 145. Wheat, price of, in 1849, 422. Whig peers, supporters of Reform Bill of 1866, 355. Whigs, in 1791, said that Turkey had nothing to do with balance of power 231 ; traditions of, on Reform, 299; union of them with Tory party, fatal to themselves, 302 ; some, like Tories, fear a Reform Bill, 333 ; Government of, up to that of Sir R. Peel, 415. Whitbread, Mr., his opinion of Turkey in 1791, 231. Whiteside, Mr., amusing, even when the country is going to ruin, 345 ; his defence of Church rates, 538. Wigfall, Mr., opinions of, 121. Will, power of making, should not be interfered with, 171. Williams, Colonel, defender of Kars, neglect of, by Lord Stratford de Red cliffe, 288. Williams, Mr., his endeavours to remedy the unfairness of the legacy-duty, 482. Will-o'-the-Wisp, political, 469. Willoughby, Mr., quotation from a note to his speech, 20; speeches of, on India, 24. Wilson, Mr., his theory of the propor tion of poor-rate bome by land owners, 433. Windsor, farm-labourers near, 381. Wine and spirit licences, how obtained, 512. Wiseman, Cardinal, advice of persons as to treatment of, 517" Wolf, shall we pay him homage, 421. Wood, Sir Charles, long speech on Indian affairs, 2 ; views of, on Indian finance, 45; his Indian policy, 105; his altered demeanour to the Emperor of the French, 267. Wool, price of (1851), 432. Working-man, opinion of, on the fran chise, quoted, 328. Working-men, home of, in Free States, 112 ; in the right on American question, 122; addition to franchise of, by Bill of 1865, 348 ; their dimi nution of power in constituencies, 363 ; 582 INDEX. numbers of, computed, by Mr. Glad stone (1866), 364; if they have no Reform, how they should act at the next election, 377; alleged that they had no grievance, 385 ; how they should demand and secure political power, 392 ; unreasonable to think that they would be silent for ever, and acquiesce in the scandals put on them, 393 ; advised to wait for action of Parliament, 398. ' > Yancy, Mr.,' envoy to Great Britain, 121. Yarmouth, elections at, 376. Z. Zeal, danger of, to a State Church, 315. ->O3>%3E£