The Sun. — London, England, 1858-10-28 00:00:00

MR. ,BLIGHT AT BIRMINGHAM. Mr. Bright paid his first visit - to his constituents of Birmingham yesterday. The townspeople of Bir mingham were. summoned by the Mayor to meet him in the Town-hall at 7 o'clock last night, and long before that time the large hall—galleries, floor and all—was crowded ; not an inch of ground was unoccupied. In addition to the Birmingham people a great number of the hon. gentleman's friends from Manchester and neighbourhood was p resen t . The Mayor took the chair, and in a few words in troduced Mr? Bright. Mr. BRIGHT' in rising to address the meeting, was received with loud and prolonged cheering. He said—Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, if I exhibit embarrassment in rising to address you I must ask your forbearance, for, m truth, as I cast my eye over this vast assembly I feel myself almost be wildered, and I am oppressed with a consciousness of my incapacity properly to fulfil the duty which devolves, upon me to-night. It is now nearly three yews since I was permitted, and, indeed, since I was able, to stand upon any public platform to ad dress any public m ee ti ng o f my countrymen, an d during that period I have passed through a new and a great experience. From apparent health I have been brought down to a condition of weakness exceeding the weakness of a little child, in which I could neither read nor write, nor converse for more than a few minutes without distress and without peril ; and from that condition, by degrees so fine as to be imperceptible even to myself, I have been re stored to the comparative health in which you now behold me. (Cheers.) In remembrance of all this is it wrong in me to acknowledge here, in the pre sence of you all, with reverent and thankful heart, the signal favour which has been extended to me by the great Supreme ? (Cheers.) Is it wrong that I should take this opportunity of expressing the gratitude I feel to all classes of my countrymen for the numberless kindnesses which I have received from them during this period—from those high in rank, ana abounding in wealthand influence, to the dweller in one of our Lancashire moors, who sentme a kind message to say that he believed where he lived was the healthiest spot in England, and that if I would come and take up my abode with him for a time, though his means were limited and his dwell ing humble, he would contrive to let me have a room to myself ? (Cheers.) I say, looking back to all this, that if I have ever done anything for my countrymen or for their interests in any shape I am amply compensated by the abundant kindness they have shown to me during the last three years —(hear)—and if there be any colour of shade to this picture, if there be those in the promotion of whose interests the prime years of my life have been spent, who, when I was stricken down and was en during a tedious exile, subjected me to a passionate and ungenerous treatment—(cheers)—l have the consolation of knowing that their act was not ap proved by the country—(renewed cheering)—and that when my cause eame up, by appeal to a supe rior, because an impartial tribunal, their verdict was condemned and set aside by the unanimous judg ment of the electors and population of this great central city. (Continued cheering.) I shall not attempt by the employment ofiany laboured phrases to express to you what I felt at the time when you conferred upon me the signal honour of returning me as one of your representatives to the House of Commons. I am not sufficiently master of the Eng lish language to discover words that shall express what I thsli flt and what I feel now to you for what you did then and for the reception which . you have given me to-night. (Cheers.) I never ima gined for a moment that you were prepared to en dorse all my opinions or to sanction every political act with which I was connected ; I accepted your resolution in choosing me as meaning this—that you had watched my political career—that you be lieved it had been an honest one—(cheers)—that you were satisfied I had not swerved knowingly to the right hand or to the left—(cheers)—that the attractions _Of power had not turned me aside— (chters)—that I had not changed my course from any view of courting a fleeting popularity— (cheers)—and, further, that you were of this opi nion—an opinion which I religiously hold—that the man whose political career is on a line with his, conscientious convictions can never be un faithful to hiS constituents or to his country. (Pro. longed cheering.) At the time of my election you will remember that some newspapers which com mented upon it took the liberty of saying' that I had had a good deal of time for reflection, that I had been taught a whOlesome lesson, and that I had changed or modified my views with r es p ec t t o re cent public policy. I have had no proper oppor tunity before to-night to refer to that statement, and I beg leave to tell those gentlemen that they were and are, if they still hol&the same opini ons , entirely mistakencheers)—that whether I was wrong or right I acted according to what I believed to be right, and that all the facts and all the in formation which I have since received have only served to confirm me in the opinions which I had previously expressed. (Cheers.) I wish now too— and all this is rather preliminary—to refer to one ingenious misrepresentation which it was of no use attempting to meet when passion was at its height, and when public clamour prevented any calm argu ment upon the question then before the country. (Hear.) All who read the newspapers at the time will recollect that it was said of me, and of others who thought and acted with me—but more of me than of any other person—that my opinion upon such a question as any particular war in which the country might be engaged was, after all, of no kind of value, because, whatever was the war, whatever were the circumstances, I shouldhave taken exactly the same course, and therefore that argument upon a particular war was of no avail and. was totally unnecessary. Now, I beg leave to say that that was a misrepresentation which no person had a right to make. (Cheers.) I shall not trouble you more than a moment or two on teis point, but permit me to say7t, hat the first time I spoke in the House of Com mons on the subject of the Russian war was on the 31st of March, 1854, when a message from the Crown came down announcing that the calamity of war was about to befall the country. In the very opening of my speech were these short sentences, which, if you will allow me, I will read to you. I said "lam not going to enter into a discussion as to the opinion of those who contend for peace at any price and those who support peace on religious grounds alone ; but I am merely goingto inquire on the present occasion as to the absolute necessity of the war; to create which necessity we must show that the objects to be attained by the war are proper, and in some degree worthy the cost and sacrifices we made to attain them. And I went on to say that I hoped if a noble lord, who was then a member of the Government, rose to make any reply to my observations he would not run away from the subject before the House, but would meet me as having discussed the question in that way, and that way only. (Hear.) Well, now tell you, what it ought not to be necessary to say, that from that time until the time when I last spoke on the, subject of th e R uss i an war I confined myself entirely to those points ; my facts, my ar guments, and my case were drawn from the de spatches and blue-books which the Government for their justification laid before Parliament ; and therefore I repeat it was not open to any one who opposed me to oppose me on the ground that my opinion on the .Russian war was worth nothing ; because whatever might have been the cause of war I should have held exactly the same language. (Cheers.) Now, after all is over except the tax gatherer, and the sorrows of those who have lost their friends in war, I will just in one sentence say that I am still unable to discover what compensa tion England has for the hundred millions of money she expended, or what compensation Europe has for the three hundred millions squandered by all the parties engaged in that frightful contest. (Hear.) It is not easy to say how much, but of this we may be sure, that the squandering of £300,000,000 by the nations of Europe in that struggle has had a great influence on the enhanced price of money during the last few years, and greatly aggravated the pressure of the panic through which we passed 12 months avo The 40,000 lives whi c h we l os t i n the. Itus ttri oviar. some persons hold c h eap ; I d o not. (Rear, hear.) I think that the grown men of are, pre rariT io Ta o 18 years of age to 50—and there worthtmore than 40,000 of them—are something and the Christie. looking (o at by the statesman and 40,000 lives which Wer ee_rs)—and I say that the v e n ial* to Europe deserved to be considered before hear.)rttshed blindly into a war with Russia. (Hear point out Per myself, there fore, all I wish to • , that the man who hesitates before he Ig °ll jaS n t so much a right t') blood and so much treasure has at least tolerancet be received with a moderate amount o t f general o en ta er ke l and forbearance. (Hear, hear.) I intenc an early opportunity of going into the question of foreign policy a little more at lengt a h than would be proper this evening. I now see be fore me, lam afraid to say how many pers ons , who are by the present constitution of this coun try shut out from any participation in political power. (Cheers.) I shall take this opportunity of discussing, and as far as I am able with brevity and distinctness, what I think we ought to aim at this Moment, when the great question of Parliamentary reform is before the country. I think we may fairly say that that question cecupies now some thing like a triumphant position—and at the same time a position of great peril, triumphant, inasmuch as it has now no open enemies, perilous, inasmuch as, for the moment, it is taken up by those who, up to this hour, 'have been, for the most part, the un eomromising opponents of. reform. (Cheers.) We have had:four Governments pledged to Parliamen tary . 'reform within the last few y ears . L or d J o h n Russell, a a prime Mi nister, introduced a Reform Bill, and afterwards, in the Government of Lord Aberdeen, Lord J. Russell introduced another Re form Bill, and the least said of these two bills, especially the latter, the better. (Laughter.) The Government which has recently been overthroWn pledged itself to the country and the House of Commons to bring in a Reform Bill, but at the time when it came to an unexpected but a not unde served end—(loud cheers)—no bill had been pre pared, so that we know nothing of the particulars of what it was to be composed. We have now a Govern ment under the chieftainship of Lord Derby, who, during his short term of office in 1852, stated, if I remember right, that one of the chief objects of his Government would be to stem the tide of demo cracy. (Laughter.) Now, it maybe that Lord Derby has entirely changed his mind, that he is as much converted to Parliamentary reform as Sir R. Peel in 1846 was converted to Corn-law repeal. If he is, then our question may be in good han.ds, but if he is not—and he has never yet acknowledged his con version—then I think it is but reasonable of us to view his course with some suspicion, and to look on the position of the question in his hands with some alarm. (Hear, hear.) They all pretend now to be very fond of the question of Reform, but still they don't tell us much about it. They remind me, in the few speeches which they have made upon the question, of the condition of that deplorable Ameri can cable, of which I read the other day in the papers that " the currents were visible, but the sig nals wholly indistinct." (Loud laughter.) But having admitted that Parliamentary reform is necessary, they thereby admit that the present House of Com mons does not satisfactorily represent the nation— and it is one step in advance to receive the admia- . sion from all those persons from among whom it has hitherto been supposed that Governments could alone be formed in this country. (Hear.) Now, I do not believe that the Parliament, as at present con stituted, does fairly represent the nation, and I think it is capable of most distinct proof that it does not. Before I proceed to figures I will mention one or two general proofs of that assertion. (Hear.) In the year 1846, when the great question of the . repeal of the corn-laws was under discussion, it re quired an earthquake to allow the people to buy their bread in the earth's markets ; it required a famine in Ireland—which from 1845 to 1851 less ened the population of that country by 3,000,000 — it required the conversion of a great Minister, the break up of a great party, the " endangering of the constitution," and all those mysterious/evils which official statesmen discovered when the poor artisan of Birmingham or Manchester, or the half-starved labourer, asked this only—that where bread could be had best and cheapest in return for his labour he might be permitted to buy it. But coming down to 1852, when Lord Derby was in office, he went to a dissolution, and the great question proposed to the constituencies was protection. Parliament re-assem bled, and protection and Lord Derby were defeated by a majority of 19 ; but when you had only a majority of 19 in the House of Commons against the re -establishment of protection, 19-20ths of the people of England were determined that they never would have anything of the sort again. (Cheers.) Take again the questions which affect the Established Church. Probably many persons in this meeting are not aware that according to the return of the Registrar-General only 1-3 d of the people of this country have any connection with the Established Church. In Scotland 1-3 d only of the population are connected with the establish ment ; in Ireland five out of six, in Wales eight out of ten, have no connection at all with it. And yet the Established Church is paramount in both houses. If the House of Commons fairly represented all the people of the United Kingdom, the Estab lished Church—it is as a political institution that I, speak of it, I say nothing of it as a religious insti tution—would be much more modest, and we should , probably get some changes much more readily than we have ever got any before. Again, you are aware, probably, that up to 1853 if a man received landed property as an inheritance, if it were left to him by will or came to him as heir-at-law, it paid no legacy duty—l speak of freehold property. In 1853 Mr. Oladstone, by an effort which was considered superhuman, prevailed upon the House of Commons to pass a law to impose a succession tax, as it was called, or a legacy duty on real property. I will tell you how they did it. You know that if a man in Birmingham comes into possession of lease hold houses, or machinery, or shares in the North- Western Railway, or shipping, or any other property not called real property—though, by the way, when a man gets hold of it it is surprising how real he finds it—(laughter)--if he be no rela tion to the person who left it to him, he has to pay a legacy duty of ten per cent., and a different degree of percentage according t o th e d egree o f relationship in which he may stand to the tes tator. In the case of land—the best of all property, with regard to its durability and certainty, for a man to helve; left to him or to possess—thelaw is of a different kind. A friend of mine, a member of the House of Commons, was fortunate enough to have left to him, by a person who was in no way related to him, a landed estate of about £7OO a-year. This was worth in the market 30 years' purchase, or £21,000. There was timber on the estate to the value of £ll,OOO, which, added to £21,000, made the whole bequest £32,000. If it had been leasehold houses, or stock in trade, or machinery, or shares, or shipping, or in the funds, my friend would have had to pay £lO per cent, on it, thatjis to say, £3,200. But what did he pay ? that is the ques tion, for if we had all estates left us alike it would not so much matter. The calculation was this :—My friend is of a certain age—l don't know what, and it's not material; the tax-gatherer or the people at Somerset-house look into a table, which shows the probable length of life of a man of that particular age, and instead of p a yi ng £lO per cent. on £ 32,000, his taxed upon the annual income of the estate multiplied by the number of years which according to the tables he may be expected to live. It ended in this way, that instead of paying £3,000 to the State, to bear your burdens and to pay for your wars, he paid £7OO, or rather less than one quarter. Do you think that if the House of Commons fairly represented the lawyers, merchants, manufacturers, shopkeepers, artisans, and all the rest of the popu lation, such an act as that could have passed that house, or that if it had existed it could continue to exist for a single session ? I could show you ine qualities as great and scandalous in the manner in which the income tax, so grievously felt by owners of certain property in Birmingham, presses and is imposed upon the owners of the soil and those en gaged in professions and trades chiefly carried on in towns, but I will not enter into that matter. Your own experience must have shown you how unequal that tax is. You know how every . Government has swept aside all proposals to make it more equal and just. And now we come to the . question of figures. I think it is very easy to sho* that if the present House of Commons equitably or at all honestly represents the population of the country figures are of no avail in this discussion, for the figures prove conclusively that such is not the case. I will not trouble you with a heap of statistics which you cannot remember, but will give you as a proof one or two cases. Take the greatest county in Eng land. Yorkshire shows you an existing inequality which is absolutely fatal to all fair representation. There are in Yorkshire 10 small boroughs which return to Parliament 16 members—there are other eight boroughs in Yorkshire whose members alto gether are 14. Now, the 10 boroughs returning the 16 members have not more than 80,000 of a popu lation, while the eight boroughs with the 14 mem bers have a population of 620,000. Now, whether you take the amount of population, the number of houses, the sum at which they are rated to the in come-tax, or the number of electors, the proportion is in the same way, the large boroughs with the smaller number of members have seven times the population, seven times the number of houses, seven times the amount of income-tax to pay, and seven times the number of electors. I must ask your at tention to one other comparison, and it relates to your own town. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, you know, represents the county of BuckS. That county has a population of 164,000, which. is not much more than half the population of Birmingham, and yet Bucks with its boroughs has not less than 11 members in the House of Commons. 164,000 persons in Bucks return 11 members, whil e Birmingham, of not less than 250,000, and probably much - more, only returns two members. I will give you another illustration which refers to your own town. In the counties of Thisetshire, Devon shire, and Wiltshire there are 22 boroughs, which return 34 members to Parliament. Compare the population and political power of those 22 boroughs returning 34 members to Parliament, with the population and political power of Birmingham. You have nearly twice the population, but you have only two members to represent you in Parliament. (Cri es o f " Shame . ") I could furnish you with pages of illustrations of this kind to show you that our whole system of repre sentation is unequal and dishonest, But one more proof only, and then I will quit the figures, for I think the case will be sufficiently clear. There are in the Ho use o f Commons at present 330 members (more than half) whose whole number of consti tuents do not amount to more than 180,000, an d there are a t t h e same time in Parliament 24 mem bers whose constituents are upwards of 200,000 in number, and, whiletlic to e oneuents a the 330 Property-tax at er members are assessed £15,000,000, the constituents o n f members are assessed to the sa me t ax at more than t 24000 o 00. (A Voice in the crowd—" We'll h ave it altered.") There is besides this great significant fact, that wherever you go in Great Britain and Ireland five out of every six men you meet have no vote. The Reform Bill, which I am not about to depreciate, since I know what it cost to get, and I know some- THE'-' __SUN, _LON i)01‘1, thing of what it has done—was so draWn as pur - posely to exclude from the list of electors the great body of the working °lasses of this-kingdom. But supposing that out of the 6,000,000 of grown up men in the united kingdom 1,000,000 have the suf frage, as is now the case, and supposing th a t th a t 1.000,000 returned the House of Commons by a fair distribution of members according to numbers, there would, in all probability, be a fair represen tation of the opinions of the 6,000,000, because the opinions of the 1,000,000 would to a considerable extent reflect and represent the opinions of their fellow-countrymen. (Cheers.) But that is not the case. The law has Selected . l,6oo,ooo to be the elec.:. tors of members of Parliament, but, having got that 1,000,000, ,they have contrived, partly by acci. dent it may be, hut very much by arguments and intention, so that the political power of the majo rity of that 1,600,000 is frittered away and fraudu lently dispersed and destroyed by the manner in which members are distributed among the 1,000,000 electors composing the electoral body. Now, I wish to ask this meeting—and let us try to take a judicial and dispassionate view of the question when we talk of reform—what is it that we really want ? I hold it to •be this—that • •we want to substitute a real honest representation of the people for that fraudu lent thing which we call a representation now. (Cheers.) But there •is a very serious question to be decided before'we can almost take a step. When you are about to reform the House of Commons, are your eyes to be turned to the House of Peers, or to the great body of the nation ? The House of Peers, as you know, does not travel very fast—even what is a parliamentary train is too fast for its nerves ; in fact, it never travels 'at all unless somebody shoves it. (Laughter.) If any man proposes to reform the House of Commons just so much and no more as will allow it to keep. pace with the wishes of the House of Lords, I would ask him not to take any trouble in the matter, but just to leave it exactly where it is . . lf you want it to represent the nation, then it is a national question ; and, having come to that conclusion, if we have to come to it, there is no Feat mystery, I think, as to the manner in which it , can lie:brought.about. . The question be tween the peers and the people is one which cannot be evaded. It is the great difficulty in the way of our friends at healquarters who are for reform, but don't know•how to do•it. • It was the difficulty which Lord John Russell felt. Lord John Russell —I believe you may take my word for it—has pro bably, from association, from tradition, from his own reading and study; and from his own just and honest sympathies, a more friendly feeling towards this question of Parliamentary reform than any, other man of his order as a statesman. (Cheers.) But having said this, _ I must also say—what he, too, would say if he thought it prudent to tell all he knew—that this is with him the great difficulty. How can I reconcile a free representation of the people in the House of Commons with the inevitable disposition which rests in a hereditary House of :Peers ? Now, we must decide this question, ." Choose you this day whom you will serve." If the Peers are to be your masters, as they boast that their ancestors were the conquerors of yours, serve you them. (" Never !") But if you will serve only the laws, the laws .of your country, the laws in making which you have been consulted, you may go on straight to discuss this great ques tion of Parliamentary Reform. lam not going to attack the House_Lof. Lords. (Laughter.) Some people tell us that the House of Lords has in its time done great things for freedom. Well, it may be so, though I have not been so successful in find ing out how or when as some people. (Cheers.) At least since 1690, or thereabouts, when the Peers became the dominant power in this country, I am not able to discover one single measure important to human or English freedom which has come from the voluntary consent and goodwill of their House. And, really, how should it ? You know what a peer is. He is one of those fortunate individuals who are described as coming into the world " with silver spoons in their mouths." (Laughter.) Or, to use the more polished and elaborate phraseology of the poet,-- "Fortune came smiling to his youth, and welcomed it, "And purpled greatness met his ripenedyears." When he is a boy, among his brothers and sisters he is pre-eminent ; he is the eldest son ; he will be " My Lord ;" this fine mansion, this beautiful park, these countless farms, this vast political influence, will one day centre on this innocent boy. The servants know it, and pay him greater deference on account of it. He grows up and goes to school and college ; his future position is known ; he has no' great excitement to work hard, because what ever he does it is very difficult for him to improve his fortune in any way. When he leaves college he has a secure position ready-made for him, and there seems to be no reason why he should follow ardently any of those occupations which make men great among their fellow-mnen. He takes his seat in the House of Peers ; whatever be his charac- ter, whatever his intellect, whatever his previous life, whatever he he in England or 10,000 miles away, be he tottering down the steep of age, or be he passing through the imbe ! °jay of second childhood, yet by means of that charming contrivance—made only for Peers— vote by proxy, he gives his vote for or against, and, unfortunately, too often against, all those great, measures on which you and the country have set your hearts. (Cheers.) There is another kind of Peer which I am afraid to touch upon—that crea ture of—what shall I say ?—of monstrous, nay, even of adulterous birth—the spiritual Peer. I assure you with the utmost frankness and sincerity it is not in the nature of things that men in these positions should become willing fountains from which can flow great things for the freedom of any country. We are always told that the Peers are necessary as a check. If that is so, I must say they admirably answer their purpose. (Laughter.) But when we come to consider the question of a reform of the House of Commons, which the constitution does not recognise as . the House of Commons be longing to the Peers, but to the nation, we will allow the House of Peers to go for a while into something like obscurity, and discuss it as if our sole object were to make it what the constitution supposes it to be—a complete representation of the people in Parliament. With regard to the question of the suffrage, which I state is one of the chief points on which I should insist, I have no doubt there are persons who'on reading my speech will say " Subversive d'oct'rine, violent language this. The change which you would propose would endanger many things which we highly value." Now, I beg to assure all those timid people that I do not wish. to endanger any of the ancient landmarks of our constitution. Ido not want to disturb this ques tion of the franchise beyond what has been already sanctioned by Parliament and the country. I do• not want to introduce any new principle or any theoretical opinion which it may be found difficult; to adopt. There are many men probably among thost whom I see before-me who are of opinion that every man should have a vote. (Loud cheers.) They are for what is called "universal suffrage," or " maiD: hood suffrage"—something which represents tli&t every man of 21 years of age who has not forfeited_ his right by any misconduct should have a vote.: Let me say that, personally, I have not' he smalles4 objection to the widest possible suffrage that th( ingenuity of man can devise. (Cheers.) Ac the same time, if 1 were now a member of a Govern ment, and had to arrange a Reform Bill for next session, I should not act upon that principle. I wilk tell you upon what principle I would act. I end in the country great diversities of opinion. Then: are the Peers, of whom I have already spoken They are citizens with ourselves, and have there fore a right to he considered. There are the rich and influential classes who, as wealthy men, are a little timid of the great bulk of the people who have not much riches. There are thousands—scores of thousands—who imagine that they could not sleep safely in their -beds if every man had a vote. We are surprised that children cannot sleep in the dark—that ,they 'fancy something dreadful will happen to them ; and there are actually rich people in this country who believe that if every man had a vote it would . give him a weapon wherewith to attack their property. There being all these diver sities of opinion, it clearly is the duty of Govern ment and of Parliament, too, to frame a measure which shall fairly represent what may be called the Reform opinion of the whole country. What have we at present in the way of franchises ? We have have the parish franchises. For generations, for a a i g l e our s u r p a s p t a r s , t h h e e r s e . h i s , v s e be e n havea P an o e o x r t e L n a s w i v e franchise unions, w in which c h have worked generally satisfactorily to the coun try. We have a franchise in our Poor Law unions. We have a corporation franchise, and, with the ex ception of a stupid provision that people shall live in towns three years before they can exercise it, that franchise may be said to have worked gene-. rally satisfactorily to the country. I will ask any man herewhether helbelieves that in all the parishes, all the poor-law unions, and all the corpora tions men have not conducted themselves with great propriety and managed the affairs of their parishes, unions, and corporations s ati s factorily ? And I should like to ask them whether they would object to have the same franchise conferred upon them for the election of members to the House of Commons. (Cheers.) There is one great point gained in such a franchise--your registration would be easy and inexpensive. There is another point—that whatever its omissions, whatever its exclusions, they. would not be directed against any .one particular. class. It would admit • the working people to electoral power just as fully as it would admit the middle, or what may be called the higher a u nd ye ri i c io n he o rc e lasses. Therefore, a s regar d s c l ass and class, it wou ld remove a great defect of the Reform . _Bill, e a n d wou ld g i ve a suffrage so wide th a t I be would suppose it did not afford a fair representation of all classes. I don't want anybody , for a moment to supposelhat that particular fran chise is better than manhood suffrage. lam only speaking of what Government might do, of what it ought to.do, and of what it might do moreover in accordance with the vast majority of opinion which exists in this country on this question. With regard to the counties I shall my little. I know no good reason why the franchise should not be as extensive as in the boroughs ; but there ap pears to be a general understanding that the next step in counties shall be one short of that. But I think it of great importance that the 40s. franchise should be extended to all parts of the united king dom as fully as it is to the people of England and Wales. (Cheers.) I come now to the question which I believe all persons who have studied the matter will readily agree is one of great importance to the country—how your members shall be allotted to the various constituent bodies. I will ask you this simple question. What is the obvious rule which would recommend itself to every man when first about to arrange this allotment ? Would he not argue in this way ? The law has given certain persons the right of voting, and it presumes that every person who has that right is capable of deciding how he shall vote. Every elector, therefore, is of the same importance in the eye of the law, and why then should not every elector Tote for the same portion of the whole Parliament ? I shall be told that I am not to go to the United States for an illustration of this. I will not. I will go a little nearer home. Take the kingdom of Sardinia. I was in Turin last year, and I made enquiries as to the mode of election and the distribution of members there ; and I found that Genoa, with a population of 140,000, returned seven members to the Sardinian Parliament. Sar dinia is not a Republic, it is a limited Monarchy like our own. Let us go to the colonies of Australia. Take New South Wales. The capital—Sydney— returns eight members to the New South Wales Parliament. In Victoria the city of Melbourne returns 13 members to Parliament, and by the Bill now introduced by the Minister of that colony the number 13 is about to be increased to 18. I believe that in Belgium and Sardinia, both countries under a limited Monarchy, the same rule applies, and we know that throughout the whole of the United States the number of members is allotted according to the population. In every 10 years this scale is re-arranged,—in fact, it works itself. Ido not for a moment argue that it is necessary that we should get an actuary to apportion the number of members exactly according to his calculations of the number of the population, but we have a fair right to an honest approximation, and without it there can be no fair representation of the people. (Cheers.) Look at London, putting aside the city ; if you were to divide th e s i x boroughs of whi c h the metropolis is made up, you would still have 12 boroughs with 300,000 population each (larger than the population of Birmingham), and con stituencies of 10,000. Divide them again and you would have 24 boroughs, each of 150,000 popu lation, with 5,000 electors ; and when the franchise is extended the number will be still greater. I say that the metropolitan boroughs and all large boroughs ought to be divided, or sub divided ; they ought to have double, or treble, or quadruple their present number of members. (Cheers.) What a miserable delusion it is that this great capital of midland industry, with its 250,000 or 300,000 inhabitants, sends only two members to the House of Commons. (Cheers.) But if every man-I see here before me had a vote, or if every . man outside had a vote, what better would he be if he sends two members to the House of Commons, and some boroughs of 10,000 inhabitants, equal to -- one of the small corners of your city, have a r i g ht to return the same number ? The whole thing as at present arranged is a disgraceful fraud. It o ug ht to be put an en d t o , and, if it is not put an end to, your representation will remain for the future very little better than a force. (Cheers.) If you look at the county seats you will find that the object of the present Government, and, in fact, of any Govern ment in which the aristocracy have so Freat a power, and where landowners are so predominant, must be in the distribution of seats greatlyqo increase the number of members for counties. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is a very ingenious gentleman. At this very moment in all probability he has got before him rows of figures to endeavour to make it out that the proper way of reforming Parliament is to increase the number of landed gentry in the House of Commons. I recollect on one occasion that he referred to the county of Chester, and showed that there were three boroughs in that county which returned six members, while the two divisions of the county only returned four, and that the four members represented far mare electors and popula tion than the six members of the towns. Now, it will be unfortunate for the Chancellor of the Ex chequer if he ventures upon the ground. of arith pette in connexion with this question. We are for arithmetic in connexion with reform, and if he proposes to deal with it in that way we have no objection to carry out the principle fully. (Ch eers and laughter.) r But now let me turn your attention once more to the House of Peers. You know that the House of Peers is a body composed entirely of landowners, with the exception of a few lawyers and a few sucessful soldiers. (A laugh.) Have you ever been to the botanical gardens in some of our towns, where a board is put up with the words, "No dogs are allowed to enter here ?" (A laugh.) There is a similar board at the door of the House of Peers, and, though you cannot see it without an imaginary eye, it says, "No traders admitted here.' (Cheers and laughter.) The House of Peers is a house for the great proprietors of the *oil. The county of Chester, to which Mr. Disraeli referred, is very strongly represented in the House of Lords. There are the Marquis of Westminster, Lord Combermere, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and, no doubt, another peer or two, if our acquaintance with them was only a little more extensive. (A laugh.) Take Lancashire. We had the Earl of Burlington, now the. Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Sefton, and the Earl of Wilton. They come up from their great landed properties in Lancashire, and sit in the House of Lords. Let us come to your own county. You have the Earl of Warwick, Lord Leigh, Lord Craven, I think, Lord Calthorpe, a n d one or two others, for in a county so charming as this there are sure to be many estates and mansions belonging to the aristocracy of England. The time was when both Houses of Parliament sat ton-ether. They met together now, but in different eb;nthers under the same roof, and no law can_pass, or the smallest modicum of freedom or of justice come to you, until it has gone through the very fine meshes of the net of the House of Lords. Well, then, I say that if th e l an d e d propr i etors of England insist upo n a great addition to their power, the House of Commons, with the inhabitants of the towns and the traders of the country, will be obliged to ask, " How is it that we have not our share of power in the House of !Lords ?" (Cheers.) Only one word more on the question of the constitution. When a Reform Bill is brought into the House of Commons by any Government, be as watchtAil and exacting as you like on the subject of the franchise, but never, I beg, take your eye for one moment from the ques tion of the distribution of the members—(cheers) — for in it lies the great subject of dispute, and unle s s you guard your rights you will have to fight your battle over again, and to begin it the day after the next bill has passed. (Cheers.) There is one other subject to which I must refer, and it is one upon which I presume I shall have the cordial assent of this meeting. it is the opinion of the great body of the Reformers of the United King dom that any Reform Bill which pretends to be generally satisfactory to Reformers must concede the shelter and protection of the ballot. (Loud cheers.) I shall not discus that question or argue in its favour. lam quite sure that in the minds of the electors of England it has long been decided, and it has also been decided in the House of Com mons. Those who are for the ballot are for it mainly because they wish free elections. Those who are opposed to it are opposed to it chiefly because they believe it would liberate the great body of the constituencies from the control and in-. fluence of the rich. (Cheers.) The Times news paper and others, but particularly the Times, in discussing this question treat it as if it were a ques tion to be despised, and tell us that it is mean and unmanly to ask that men should go to the poll and give their votes in secret. The very man who writes thus in the Times writes his article in secret and publishes it in secret, and if any voter says that he ought to affix his name to it—which, mind, Ido not say at all—what is his answer ? He replies " I am performing a great public duty ; I am obliged in the discharge of that duty to com ment with great severity upon Ministers and public men, and t o ex p ose a b uses , an d in d o i ng th a t i t i§ I necessary that I should have the shelter of anony mous writing." (Hear.) Well, I do not dispute i)thuabtl,icbudtutiyf duty, ayisswise and just fora writer i n th e Times t o h ave th at s h e lt er in the performance o f a it is especially wise and just that the humble elector in every county and every borough should have from the law, if the law can give it, an equal protection in the exercise of his franchise. (Cheers.) I believe that when the fran chise is thus extended, when the apportionment of members to the constituency approximates to a just arrangement, and when you have the protection of the ballot, you will have that kind of representa tion in the House of Commons which will give to 4 ;very man who sits there a real constituency, and i vill fix him with a real responsibility. I believe A here is no country in the world that pretends to , gular government where there is less of real re ap onsibility among high officials than there is in Ji # ll igland. There is one case which I cannot resist THURSDAY E VENING, OCTOBER 28, 1858. the temptation of citing as an illustration Of what "mean : During the Russian war there were two points in which the interest of Europe was cen tered=-one' was Sebastopol, the other the city of Kars. I hope we have not forgotten all the geo graphy we learnt during those calamitous times, for I believe it is the only really valuable thing we got by the war. (A laugh.) You recollect that the city 9f Kars was besieged by the Russians, and that it was defended by Turkish troops, as sisted and commanded, I think, by an Englishman —Col. Williams. (Cheers.) You have heard, and I am not at all prepared to dispute it—that Col. Wil liams behaved, I do not say with great bravery, for that is common to almost all Englishmen and indeed, to the majority of men everywhere,—but with great sagacity and prudence, and showed the qualities of ao, commander. Eventually he was obliged to capitulate, and those who ca pit u l a t e d were treated in the most honourable manner by the Russians who obtained possession of the town. At that time a nobleman of very high rank —no less a personage than Lord Stratford de Red cliffe—was ambassador from the Queen of England at the city of the Sultan. He had been there for nearly 20 years. During the siege of Kars Colonel Williams wrote and forwarded to Lord Stratford at Constantinople more than 60 letters and despatches with reference to his position, stating how they were worn out with sorties and the attacks of the enemy, how long their provisions and ammunition might last, and urging him to take any steps which might be possible for the purpose of making a diversion in his favour or of sending relief. All this was most proper for Colonel Williams to write and communicate to the ambassador of the Queen at Constantinople; but do yourecollect the striking fact that Lord Redcliffe did not reply to—did not acknowledge or take the smallest notice of :any oneof those 60 or 70 despatches. (Cries of "Shame' and hisses.) He treated them as waste paper. He had been years at Constantinople, quarrelling with every European Minister there, and bullying the Ministers of the Sultan ; but when his own coun trymen and their allies were shut up in the fortified town of Kars, besieged by a powerful and over whelming force, driven at length to starvation, and finally to capitulation, this great official treated the whole thing as utterly beneath his notice. Subse quently, Colonel Williams came to England and was made a baronet; Parliament passed an act granting him a pension of £l,OOO a-year, and the Marquis of Lansdowne, one of the Cabinet Minis ters of the day, brought him into the House of Commons for 'his pocket borough of Calne, in Wilt shire. Colonel Williams has never opened his mouth in public in England on the subject of his treat ment by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe—(a laugh)— while that nobleman, who had been guilty of this great neglect, I say this enormous crime —(cheers) —has since taken his seat in the House of Lords, has become a great authority, and has now been sent by the Government on a special mission to Con stantinople. I need not tell you that I was not m favour of any of that Eastern policy, but I presume Lord Stratford was ; he was one of the great au thors of it, and I say that any man who takes office from his Sovereign and his country as he took it, with a salary of £lO,OOO a-year, and expenses of almost like amount,- for the Embassy at Constan tinople, is guilty of a scandalous abandonment of the duty he owes to the Queen and to the country if he pays no attention to such letters as those that Lord Stratford received from an officer of her Ma jesty shut up with our allies at Kars. (Cheers.) If Lord Stratford had been a Russian nobleman and had so behaved, before taking his seat in the House of Peers and going on a special mission to Constan tinople he would have had the advantage of going on a special mission to Siberia—(cheers and laugh ter)—while if he had been an ambassador of the United States of America—but I cannot follow out the illustration, because in,the United States there is no family influence, there is no power such as that wielded by our great provincial potentates — there is nothing in that country to shield an officer of the State from public reprobation, and therefore I am quite certain that no person deputed. from the United States could by any possibility be giiilty of the abandonment of duty which was manifested. by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. (Cheers.) Whenever you get a House of Commons that fairly represents the nation; with a Cabinet that fairly represents the House of Commons—(hear)—if there be any other Lord Stratford I would not like to predict precisely what would befall him ; but I believe thqt such a man, with such a temper—for it was a question of temper—will, not receive under such circumstances high and continuous employment from the. Gover nment of this country. (Cheers.) I say we have a right, be it in peace, be it in war, when we employ men in the service of the Crown and of the State, and pay them for their labour, to all their energies and to all their devotion. (Cheers.) This question of Parliamentary reform, then, is a great and serious- question. I want to give a word of warning to those persons who are now engaged, if there be any engaged, in constructing a Reform Bill for the next session. Let them not bring in a delu sive and sham measure. (Cheers.) Universal suf frage, equal distribution, vote by ballot—any of these points may or may not be perilous; but if there be one thing more distinctly perilous than another to the ruling classes in this country it is that now, when they are committed to at least a temporary—l wish it were a permanent—settle ment of this great question, they should bring for ward and pass a bill which, while it offers you something great in the way of constitutional free dom, is found immediately after it has passed to be nothing but a delusion and a sham. (Cheers.) It will disappoint everybody ; it will exasperate all the reformers ; it will render a feeling which is now not bitter both bitter and malignant, and within 12 months after the bill has passed and the cheat is discovered we shall be entered in all probability upon another agitation, but an agitation of a very different character from any we have yet seen. (Cheers.) Let us have a real bill, a good bill, or no bill at all. The question at this moment is in the hands of the enemy. We stand the risk of havin g brought before us what I will describe as " a coun try gentleman's reform bill." The country gentle men have not been notoriqns for their sympathies in favour of reform. We have always been carrying on for the last 30 3ears and more a steady and per petual war against the predominance and the power of the country gentlemen in Parliament. If we loOk at their past policy we shall not have much confidence in their proposed measure. Their wars, their debts, their taxes, placed upon the bulk of the people, their stout opposition to the Re form Bill of 1832—a1l this leads us greatly to suspect them ; and I confess for my own part I wish the question of reform were in the hands of Reformers—in the hands of men of whose sympa thies with respect to it we could nothave,from their past lives, the shadow of a doubt. (_C_h . ee . rs.) I have great fears that until you have a Munstry in which there are men: who are really in favour of reform, and of an honest reform, you are likely to get any such measure as the most moderate among us ought to be in the least satisfied with. (Hear, hear.) I must warn you against one phrase which I find our friends—we cannot now call any of them our opponents—the bewildered Reformers are be ginning to use. They say we must not on any ac count " Americanize" our institutions. Now, I know only one institution in America of which the Americans need to be very greatly ashamed—and that institution was established under the Mon archy, although, unfortunately, it has lived and flourished under the Republic. They tell us that in America numbers overwhelm property and edu cation. Well, but numbers have not overwhelmed property and education in England ; and yet look at legislation in England. Look at our wars, look at our debt, look at our taxes, look .at this great fact,—that every improvement of the last 40 years has been an improvement which numbers, and num bers only, have wrested from the property, and what they call the education of the country (Cheers.) Our education is fairly represented by our Universities, but I say now, as I have said be fore, that if the Legislature of England, if the Par liament of England, had been guided for 30 years past according to the counsels of the representatives of the Universities, England, instead of being a country of law and order, would have been long before this a country of anarchy and of revolution. (Cheers.) America is a strange bugbear. There are 32 at least, if not 33, independent and sovereign States in the United States of America. Now, I am not one of those who believe that you cannot be free and happy under a monarchy such as ours. lam not proposing—l am the last person to propose—that the institutions of this country should be modelled upon the plan of some other country, because it is the plan of some other country ; but I say that if we are at liberty to draw science, products for our manufac tures, and literature from every country in the world, why should we not, if we see anything good in the politics of another country, be equally at libertyto take a lesson in that respect also ? (Hear.) Speaking generally, in all the sovereign and. inde pendent States of America there is a franchise as wide as that which I have proposed to-night—there_ is an exact equal allotment of members to the elec tors, and there is throughout most of t h e States the protection of the ballot. Yet, in America, Nye _fii!d law, order, property secur e, and a population in the enjoyment of physical comforts and abundance, such as are not known to the great body of the people in this country, and which never have been known in any country in any age of the'world be fore. (Hear:) Now, will any man dare to tell me in the presence of thi s audience that the English nation in England is a worse nation than the Eng lish nation in America ? Are we less educated, ar we less industrious, are we less , moral, are we les subject to the law, are we less disposed to submit t all the just requirements of the Government ? If we are so, and if , the English nation in America excels us in all these particulars, does it not look very much as if the institutions in England are not as good in the training and rearing of a nation as the institutions in the United States ? Ido not say that, but those persons who say that the franchise, the distribution, and the ballot, which operate so well in America would be perilous in England, do what I will not do—they libel the people of this country, and they libel our institutions. (Cheers.) Now, I have a suggestion to make, which I hope somebody will act upon. The Reformers now are more numerous than ever they weve before. Why should they not by some arrangement have their own Reform Bill—have it introduced into Par liament and supported with all the strength of this great national party ; and if it be a bill sensibly . better than the bill that is being prepared for us in Downing-street, why should we not with all the unanimity of which we are capable—by public meetings, by petitions, and when the proper time comes by presenting our selves at the polling-booths—do everything in our power to pass that measure into law ? (Cheers.) I say that we are great in numbers ; that united we are great in strength ; that we are invincible in the solidity of our arguments ; that we are altogether unassailable in the .justice of our cause. (Cheers.) Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment be hopeless of our great cause ? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. (Cheers.) Am I not in the town of Bir mingham—England's central capital ; and do not those eyes look upon the sons of those who, not 30 years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base ? (Cheers.) Not a few - of the strong. men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they?. (Cries of "No, no.") Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished. with you ? (Cries of "No, no," and cheering.) Why, I see the answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of free dom to your children. (Cheers.) As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with a diminish.ed fire ; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my coun trymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me; be found in your ranks in the impending strug gle. (The hon. gentleman sat down amid great cheering, which was renewed again and again, the audience rising and waving , their hats and hand kerchiefs in the most enthusiastic manner.) Alderman MANTON, in moving a vote of thanks to Mr. Bright for his excellent address, expressed the pleasure he felt in reflecting that he (Alderman Manton) was instrumental in introducing him to the constituency . of Birmingham, and he hoped he would long continue to fulfil the duties of his pre sent situation. (Loud cheers.) Mr. G. EDMONDS seconded the motion, which upon being put by the Mayor was carried amid protracted acclamation. Mr. BRIGHT briefly acknowledged the vote, and thanks being voted to the Mayor for his conduct in the chair, the immense assembly separated. " THE TIMES," BROTHER JONATHAN, AND THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. It is difficult to keep up a fast friendship . with a man who has frequent fits of the gout, or a chronic toothache, or an excoriated epidermis. He may be a very valuable man to know, and au fond he may have a real affection for you. But you can never be quite free and unconstrained in your com panionship with him ; you are always afraid of coming a little too near his gouty toe, or .opening a window and letting in a cold draught that may set his teeth and temper. raging; if you poke ever so gentle a bit of fun -at him it is not certain he will not throw his crutch at your head ; and if you nudge him playfully in the ribs he is almost sure .to scream and abuse you. He may be almost over whelmingly effusive in his moments of intermittent good humour, but suddenly comes that' twinge in the toe, and down go the corners of his mouth, or that wrack of pain, and up goes his hand to his face, and then he becomes touchy and testy and quarrelsome, and you are tempted to say, " Con found the fellow, I'll let him alone. He's a capital companion when in good humour, and there is no one I'd rather have by my side in case of a fight ; but he is so crotchety . and uncertain that I can never be sure that I should have him on my side. If we got into a melee he would be as likely to break my head as that of one of our antagonists ;" and thus you grow more polite and less friendly, and your hot-tempered friend, who repressed your familiarities, chafes at your indifference. Will our newly-made neighbours on the other side of the Atlantic, now only just a cable's length off, pardon us if we apply this passing reflection to them ? Not that we would for a moment insinuate that they, in their body politic, are afflicted with gout or with toothache ; for our fiat-footed young friend strides with the tread of a juvenile giant, and his grinders are so hale that, having munched up half a new world, he is rather suspected of in dulging gastronomic designs upon other portions of it. In fact, if he has a fault in respect of his teeth, it consists in just a little too much fondness for showing them. But there is something rather wrong about our friend's skin. The oil of human kindness in which he was dipped was a little hot, and has scalded off the outer cuticle. His sensa tions seem to be rather akin to those of the ancient invaders of England, morsels of whose skin are still under the nail-heads of our old church doors ; or to those of that illused saint who stands, in we forget which continental cathedral, draped in his flayed off hide. He quivers to every, tonal; and but that his, muscles are : l i arge, and his strength and temper are dangerous to any one volunteering the friendly operation, a good healthy tar-and-feathering would 'd.o him a world of good. It is our own fate always to be in a difficulty with our sturdy friend. We can never be quick enough to meet his hot fits of affection, or to get out of the way . when the bootjack and the goutstool are flying , across the room. We are always doing something to congeal his gushing sympathies or to heighten his ill temper. The New York Morning Courier takes us to task for this, our misconduct, in a spirit of courteous admonition, which, as it is not very common to the other side of the Atlantic, may not be passed over without the courtesy of a reply. Our transatlantic remonstrant, after a gene ral charge of ancient grievances, which, as they are not specified, cannot be refuted, does us the justice to admit that the Times, when speaking of " our country and its institutions, has usually done so in a fair spirit." Well, that is something. We have not been false to the fundamentals of friendship. We may have thought it a matter of duty to tell him we thought he was rather sharp in foreclosing the mortgage on that Mexican's estate, or that he must not disgrace himself in the eyes of his country by stealing that Spaniard's tobacco-box, or that he ought to keep his sons from riding over his poor neighbours, or that we should be obliged to him not to poach more than he could help in our fishponds, and we have even go*e so far as gently and meekly to hint a complaint to him of the nuisance arising from the cries of that black servant whom he is always thrashing. We have never, it is true, done any of these things without putting him into a terrific passion, but we cannot in our conscience think we were in fault ; for even the indict ment against us admits that he and his family have always been treated with due respect, and that even our friendly remonstrances have been made in a fair spirit. Our new crime is, however, we feel, most unpardonable. We have made a mis take about the Transatlantic Telegraph. Cousin jonathan intended to be sublime, and we in our error fancied he intended to be ridiculous. We un happily mistook his pathos for bathos. He enter tained us with a performance which he intended to be most affecting, and we had the misfortune to think it was a farce which he meant us to laugh at. So we poked our little bit of fun at him in return, and with due promptitude the goutstools and the bootjacks came flying about our ears; next morn ing came the more formal and courteous epistle to which we are now replyipg . Now, our New York contemporary is much mist aken if h e supposes that the people of England are not pleased at the apparent accomplishment of an in stantaneous communication between the two nations as the people of America were. There was some promptitude in the Royal message ; a confidence which could only be inspired by strong interest and a strong hope was manifested by the buyers who ran the shares up to par on the Liverpool Exchange ; and we cannot think that we ourselves were wanting to the occasion. We took the best means in our power to secure a clever and graphic ' history of the operation, and if our English ship of war had foun dered in the tempest we should have had our own special cause for mourning ; we celebrated the suc cess with as much glorification as we soberly could, and it is not much more than a month since we quoted from the New York papers acknowledg ments to the Times for being the only paper which, on the day of the arrival of the news, had devoted a leader to the subject. How far we may be en titled to that distinguishing praise we do not know ; it was given us, and we quote it therefore against the donors. But we did laugh. The fact is not to be denied. But how could we do otherwise ? If New York had piped to London any rational tune, London might have danced to it ; but " Yankee Doodle" was played so fast and loud that no English feet could keep time to it. The outward methods of expres sion of great joy were strange to ourisland humour. The " Young Men's Democratic Union Club accompanied-by--a choric band," serenading 1 1 fr• Field, was an oddity in our eyes. Some of es have seen real serenades in Italy, and we all have seen mock serenades at our opera-houses, but when the idea is suggested of a middle-aged gentleman roused from his sleep and struggling mto his clothes in order to appear upon a balcony to be played to by votive male admirers e quipped with fiddles and mouth-organs our English gravity is overtaxed and will explode. Then, when the last scene came, and the ilumination ended with the combustion of the Cityhall, and when we were entertained with the appearance of the Mayor of New York at the endof the performance facetiousli announcing that the Lord Mayor of London had , in a higher strain of joyous frenzy, ordered the London Mansion-house aid the Palace of West minster to be lit up as a responsive bonfire, no one could have imagined tin]; we were expected t° keep countenance under psin of being accused 01 " laughing at American enthusiasm." Let us ask the New York Courier, . did not the more sober people in New . York smile long before we laughed? And, now that a little time has gone by, do not the actors in this odd demonstra tion laugh at their own folly betwixt whiles of their wiser and sadder labour of building.up their City-hall? Let us assure our too senitive kinsmen that we only mirror the sentiments of the English people when we treat in a fair spirit both their country and their institutions ; and that if we scold their errors, withstand their encroachments , and laugh at their extravogances, we can yet respect their power, honour their good qualities, and put high value on their friendship.--Times. COUNT.RY M.4R SETS. _ NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE—Our. 26. At this morning's market; with a fair show of whoa / the trade was languid, but the holders of both English an foreign parcels declined to make any concession m prioe.,: A limited trade in flour, but Saturday's rates supported,. ."` barley Very little doing. Oats and beans more plentalo , and difficult to quit, except on. lower terms. Peas dull, b unchanged in value. HULL—OcT 26. There was a fair supply of wheat from the farmers to: day, and transactions were limited at a decline of is to .4 * per qr. Not much doin in foreip." parcels, of which th e arrivals are fair, and prices remam 81561 it the same as les t quoted. A steady inquiry for good grinding parcels of bs' ley, but all other kinds is to 2s per qr. cheaper. Peas ill limited reqUest. Oats steady. Bears held for an advance/ which checked sales. Wheat.... Old white....per qr..... 448 Od to 48s 04 New white .. ;', Old red .. .... .. ... .. .. .. 4 4 4 25 8 0 0 d d to t 0 4 45 8 : Od v/s1 New red Dantzic, Konb., &c. old White 50s Od to 540 vu„, Dutch, Belgian, and Frenoh.. 47s Od to 48s Od Baltic and Hamburg, red ... 458 Od to 47s ~..u' St. Petersburg and Riga, old.. 40s Od to 42s ot', Barley.... English malting ... .... 32s Od to 36s Od Grinding . .. 30s Od to 328 I, '„, Saal and Oderbruck ... 33s Od to 35s re Holstein and Danish .. 328 Od to 33s IP • Grinding Oats English, oldla Archangel and Riga, per at.. is OP to ls ... . . 26527 0 0 d d t t o o 2 2 8 9: 0 ti a Friesland and Dutch -.. Is 1 to ls 241 Swedish and Danish . 0311 dtois ti Beans ....English, old, per qr .. 468 to 48s New pigeon 42s Od to 430 (4 New tick. E gyp ti an 39s Od to 400 .., Peas Foreign breakers Grinding . .. 40s Od to 41s li.i . ; Tares ....Winter B5B Od to 900 rs. Indian Corn . . 33s Od to 340 AA w 70 V. 57$ „ A Linseed, feeding s4n Od to 55s v" . crushing - 50s Od to - A Linseed cakes (Hull) £9 7 6to £9 10 n v Foreign BlO oto 9 0 0 Rape cakes - 61 0 A Bones ROCHDALE—Our. 26. The trade in most articles is stationary, but, holders of oatmeal conceding a reduction of ls, a fair quantity chang7 hands. In the provision market there was a large show 7' potatoes, and the trade was heavy, with lower prices at t he close. Flukes, 9s to 9s 6d ; radicals, lOs per 2521 b. ' CORK—OCT. 26. At this morning's market there was very little doing in grain, and prices remained without much change. , 4 , Wheat ....17s to 21s Oats.. loe .to I"' White do 15s to 22s Beans, new —s to ..A Barley - 10s to 16s Ditto, old .—s to ---° In the butter market upwards of 2,000 firkins were „,.° ll sale. Prices—First quality, 104 s; second, 101 s; third, 9 °'" fourth, 80s ; fifth, 705.; sixth, 50s. . BELFAST—OCT. 25. The market was dull, and the business transacted iste, descriptions of grain manifested no impr ovement on the prices of last day. —OCT. 26. Ly there was a fair show ' sinoss was limited, at ahoy DUBLIN At this corm market' to-d wheat, and the amount of bi last week's prices. s. d. s. d. s. d. 0 . Wheat, white.. 22 6 to 24 6 I Do., new Do., red Do., new .... 21 6t024 6 Rapeseed • 2 11 6 11 0 66 t r o ° °l3 20 Barley 6 Oats Do. black 11 otol2 0 Indian corn ..• 30 oto 31 BRISTOL SUGAR--OcT. 27. . f There continues to be a very good demand for BUga r „ ° : all kinds, with very little British plantation offering. Th e 11 prices are still very firm. Some sales have been made. 1 . .. foreign. Rum is in good demand, and prices are wellnOw tained. • , COAL MAR: (Prices of Coal per Ton at ,KET—OcT. 27. the close of the market.) Walls End. s. 6 . 3 , hi ', Ha rve y 16 " lesorid .... l6 9 Frainwellgate .. .... 6 West Stanley 15 di Bell • - l6 'South Hetton 19 a ° Stewart' s , - l9 " 'Kelloe lB 3 South Kelloe 18 18 3 'Thbrpe 6 Trimdon Thornley 14 a 9 Evenwood .... 16 " Acorn. Close 17 6 Gosforth l6 Eden • 17 9 Russell's Hetton 11 Kepler Grange lB - Heugh Hall 18 0 6 Harton Wharncliffe 17 " 5 Hunwick 14 6 Whitworth 1 4 Shineliffe . l7 3 Lambton 18 6 ; Byron t, 20 B—sold, 148 s. d. Davison'sWestHartleyl4 9 Bates' W. Hartley 14 0 Haswell Gas.... . x 13 • 0 Howard's West Ha i rtleYl4 Syases Beh4de West • Hartley . .14 6 North Percy Hartley :13 • Walker Primrose l3 O . Buddle's Tanfield MoCr . .. . .12 9 Tanfield Moo BUtes 12 • 9' Wylam .. 16 0, Nixon's MeiihYr.....2l 0 Powell' sDu4rYn Steam2l ' 0 Benton's Wst Hartley.l4 • 9 Bower's West Hartley.l4 " 9 Walli End: Bradyll's Hetton...... I 8 Hartlepool. ' • •18 3 South HartlePuol..... 17 6 Caradoc ... 0 Riddell • ' " l6 6 Cassop lB .0 Hetton 19 3 Ha5we11...... l9 3 Ships at market SUDDEN DEATH AT THE LIVERPOOL COLLEOIATS FL SCHOOL:—On Monday night, at the meeting of the Societi. for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews, an just when the Lord Bishop of Chester had begun • his au" dress a person named Roland Hughes, a joine,r an d builder/ residing in Holden-street, Windsor, fell down in a flt in the body of the hall, and expired in a few minutes. This occur . : rence cast a gloom, on the proceedings , and Dr. 111'Nel alluded to the circumstance in the course of an eloquen t address. As the deceased died of disease of the heart there was no inquest held on the body. [ADVERTISEMENT.]—Rarey's Horse and Cattle Improv ing Food is equally adapted to improve the stamina of ill; conditioned Horses, Cows, Bullocks, Calves, Sheep, all: Pigs. It causes no extra expense, as it contains far more and better nourishment than its cost of lid. per feed allr plies in corn and hay ; hence ensures an actual saving 111 the keep. But its principal advantages are a great improve,' ment in the digestive functions, the Stamina and gene ra ' condition of horse§ enabling them to perform far more labour without getting distressed. It imparts new v igoul to sick, debilitated, or old apparently worn-out horses, a n °' it puts rapialk . the finest flesh on cattle generally, an d Iry proves the milk in cows, as it enables them to extract the entire nourishment out of everything they feed on. Rare) ? and Co., 'n, Regent's Quadrant, Piccadilly, London,: Packed in fins of about 90 feeds, lls. ; in casks o f a b o ut 40ti feeds, 50s. ;1 of about 1,000 feeds, Z 5, being about lid. Pe r feed. . . BIRTHS. BALFOUR.:--On •the - 26th inst., at Grove House, POOP the wife of Edmund - Balfour; Esq., of a daughter. COLLARD. —On the 26th inst., at Herne Bay, the wife (1 ` Edward Reynblds Collard, of a son. FIELD. --On the 26th inst., "at Twickenham, the wife Joshua Field, jun., Esq., of a son. TRAVERS.—On the 25th inst., at East Bergholt, Sullo ll4 the wife of Captain Otho Travers, of a son. • • MARRIAGES. GLAD6Torrk,—FIELD. the 26th inst., at the Congre" gational Church, 'C/apham, Thomas Hill Gladstone, Oi l of John Gladstone; Esq., of Stockwell Lodge, Surrey, Matilda, only daughter of Joshua Field, Esq., F.R.b., ° Balham, Surrey. VALLETORT HAkILTON.--011 the 2 6th inst., at S i t , James's Church, Piccadilly, Viscount Valletort, elde st son of the Earl and Countess of Mount Edgcumbe, to Lady Katherine Elizabeth Hamilton, fourth daughter the Marquis and Marchioness of Abercorn. DEATHS. BUCKLEY.—On the 18th inst., at Hawarden, Eugen e Buckley, Esq., C.E., aged 60. BucKNELL.—On the 21st inst., Mr. Henry Geo. Buck Dent at Chelsea, late of Bedford, aged 20. BOYD.—On the 26th inst., at 45, Cambridge-terrace, Hyd e ; park, Janet, eelict of the late Edward Boyd, Esq., °- Wigtonshire, N.B. GARLAND.—On the 19th inst., at 60, South Molton-stre et, Bond-street, Miss Christiana Greenwollers Lloyd Ga l ' land, aged 90. INSOLE.—On the 23d inst., at his sea-side residence, ren arth, Mr. -B. R. Insole, of Cardiff, aged 30. TAPP.—On the 26th inst., at St. Leonard's-on-Sea, Chit James Tapp, Esq., of the London and Westminster Ban" aged 36. s VAN SANDAIL—On the 26th i ns t , at 1, Great Corara i % t Andrew Barnard, th e e ld est son. of Andrew van San' Esq., aged 20. --_, LONDON : Print e d an d P u bli s h e d b y M URDO YOUN G ' of No. 112, St ran d, P r i nter, at Th e Sun Off i ce, N o . 11 2 , Strand, in the Precinct of the Savoy, in the countY of Middlesex, Thursday, October 28, 1848. o.