The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-10-07 00:00:00

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MR. BRIGHT ON THE EASTERN
QUESTION.

Mr. Bright having accepted an invitation from
the President of the Manchester Reform Club, of
which the right hon. g,ntleman is an honorary
member, to take part in a soiree of that institution,
the meeting was held on Monday night in the dining
room of the Clubhouse. The anticipation of a speech.
from Mr. Bright led to an extremely crowded attend-
ance. Several years have passed since Mr. Bright
addzesled a public meeting in Manchester, and the
desire to hear him caused some heartburning at the
limitation of the audience to a room that could not
hold a thousand persons. Mr. Bright, however, i 4
said to have been unwilling that his acceptance of the
President's invitation should have the effect of turning
a social soiree of politicians into a great political
demonstration, and some inconvenience was submitted
to in maintaining, as far as practicable in the circum•
stances, such distinction as there is between the one and
the other.

At six o'clock the Club opened its doors to the
guests, between six and seven hundred in number,
and after a brief interval for conversation, while
coffee was served to the company, the chair
was taken by the President, Mr. Benjamin Armitage.
Mr. Bri2ht was received with immense cheering,
and "Auld Lang Syne " was sung vita enthu-
siasm. Among others present were the Liberal mem-
bers for Manchester (Sir Thomas Bazley and Mr.
Jacob Brlght), Lord Edward Cavendi.b, Mr. A. Brog-
den, M.P., Mr. J. K. Cro.s, M.P.' Mr. Kay Shuttle-
worth, M.P., Mr. T. B. Potter, M.P.. Sir Edward
Watkin, M.P. Mr. B. Whitworth, M.P., Mr. G. H.
Whalley, M.P., Mr. Henry Rawson, Mr. W. Agnew,
and Dr. John Watts.
Mr. Armitage, the Presldent of the Club, took the chair,
and briefly opened the proceedings. He stated that it had
originally been intended that the gathering should be a social
one, but since it was projected the complicated and serious
state of matters in connection with Turkey had led to some-
thing like an autumn sepsion without a sitting of Parliament,
In which the leaders of both the great political parties in the
State had found it necessary to discuss informally our foreign
relations.

Atter Sir T. Barley, M.P., had briefly addrested the meet-
ing.

Mr. Bright was called upon by the President, and on
rising was received with great cheering. He said :
Mr. President and gentlemen, I am oppressed with
thoughts of the difficulty of the position in which I stand
after the observations which have been addressed to the
meeting. I am surprised to find myself here, because,
as you know, I have endeavoured for a long time
past to avoid an attendance at public meetings of
every description; but your President is one of my oldest
friends, and I know, as you know, how he has been
associated with us in every great cause for many years past,
and how difficult it is to object to anything that he asks
us to consent to. (A.pplause.) I recoiled, too, the services,
the character, and the long friendship of his venerable father,
and when he did me the honour to ask me to come to this
meeting to.night, I felt that my objections—l suppose it
was a moment of weakness ("No, no ")—gave way, and I
consented to come; and I can only say that I am really
touched with the kind reception which you have offered to
me. and the kind words which have been spoken with regard
to me. (Cheers) Now, this building is the club-house of
the Manchester Reform Club. It is a building, therefore,
I presume, in which we are at liberty to discuss political
questions. (Hear, hear.) It is not an agricultural dinner
(laughter), at which it is understood that potties are for-
bidden, but at which politics, often to us of a very unsatis-
factory kind, are generally spoken. (Renewed laughter.)
We are not forbidden here even to look at matters from
a Party view. We are a very formidable portion of the
Liberal Party of this town and district, and therefore we
have every liberty to ditcuss political questions to-night
as we think best. We differ very much from our opponents
on the question of Party. We have, as they have, but, I
am afraid, not so perfectly as they have the machinery
of latty, but we devote the whole power of our
Party machinery, not to Party, but to general and
public objects. (Hear, hear.) If we cast our eye back
during the time which some of no still clearly remember, we
shall find, I think, that this is true. If we have done any-
thing to extend political freedom, it has been freedom to all
so far as we could extend it. If under our auspices religious
liberty has been in any manner extended, no man's religions
liberty in consequence has been in the smallest degree cur-
tailed. If by any measures that we have supported employ-
ment has been rendered more constant and wages have been
raised, it has not been done, or attempted to be done,
through a monopoly of law or a monopoly of Trades' Unions;
it has been attempted to be done, by measures broad and
great, extending over the whole people, and whose bene-
ficent action has been felt, and I hope is now appre-
ciated by aIL (Hear, hear.) It the people era better fed
by anything we have done, no man has found his table
barer, or his cupboard more empty. I suppose, at this
moment, if all the working men and their families in the
three kingdoms could be put in the scales they would
weigh some thousands of tons more than they could have
done 30 years ago. (CEeera ) It the people are better
clothed by any of those metwures, there is not one more of
them in rags. If they are better housed there is not one
more of them without shelter, or sheltered only by a hovel.
If there are advantages of education greater than before
existed, by schools, and by the circulation of newspapers,
that is an advantage which has been extended broadly even
to the poorest and the lowest. I was, only a fortnight ago,
In the county of Darharia, and I had the opportunity there
for two or three days of reading a little paper published
at Darlington, the Northern Echo—a small paper, but
admirably conducted. It has, I am told, a circulation
which at its present rate of increase must almost im-
mediately reach 20,000 copies every morning. This
little paper comes for a whole week into the house
of every pitman in the county who chooses to take it
in. It comes there bringing him all the news, con-
cisely put, accurately reported from all parts of the world;
and he has it In his pitman's house just as early and as cer-
t-tx,ts.a,
people, and it is one of the things which we have done.
(Cheers) It the people are more content, if they are more
satisfied with the legislation of Parliament or with the
general administration of the country, it arises during the
last 30 or 40 years from measures with which we hate been
intimately connected—measures which we have never
originated or promoted or carried with reference to Party
objects, but with reference to something greater and much
higher and nobler—the general good of the whole people.
(Caeers. ) If we have been able thus to interfere, and I tract '
honestly and with advantage, in home affairs, I should ask I
whether, at a time like this, we are able entirely to close our
eyes to tile foreign complications in which at this moment,
unhappily, we are sometthat entangled. The only people in
the country who have been able to close their eyes and
their ears are lit r Al.jesty's Ministers (" shame"),
and it has taken almost the voice of the universal nation
to encase them from the lethargy in which they seem to
have been living. (Hear, hear) But some of their friends
tell us we should not be hard upon them, because, if there
has been error, it is an error in which both parties
have participated ; that the leaders of the Tory
Party and the leaders of the L'beral Party were
alike involved in the mistakes—l had almost said, and
perhaps I ought to say, the crimes of 1:0 years ago. Well,
I grant both parties were concerned in the mistakes, in the
glaring errors of that period. But the difference between
the two parties now is this, that the leaders of the Liberal
Party have learnt something, and the leaders of the Tory
Party appear to have learnt nothing (Cheers.) For my-
self, I say it most conscientiously, I would have been glad
to be silent during all these transactions. I have
written, as you know, some two or three weeks azo, a letter
to friends of mine in Birmingham' which was published; but
I have declined to attend it must be some scores of meetings,
I should think, to which during the last two months I have
been invited. In fact, my position on this question is one
very peculiar and very difficult, for there are few men so pro-
minent as I have been in It e politics of the country who 20
years ago occupied the position and held the views which I
then held. But, though I have much difficulty in approach.
lug the subject, still I can say, as your President said on
another matter, thitt I have nothing to recant. (Cheers.)
Twenty-two years ago, In the year 1814, as you snow, I
terrified the Government of the day, and differed from
what appeared to be the vast majority of the people on the
question of the war with Russia. I was overpowered,
as you also know. Numbers and ignorance and passion
were combined against me, and I, of course, was out-
voted, and declared to be unwise and unpatriotic; and I
know not the list of unpleasant adjectives that were used in
disteassing my course and my position at that time. Ido
not know why I differed from other people so much, but
sometimes I have thought it happened from the education
I had received in the religions sect with which I am con
nected. (Hear, hear.) We have no creed which monarchs
and statesmen and nigh priests have written out for us.
Our creed, so far as we comprehend it, comes pure and
direct from the New Testament. We have no 38th Article—
an Article which declares that it is lawful for Chrisien
men at the commandment cf the civil magiatra`e to wear
weapons or arms, or to take pert and serve in the wars—
which means, of course, and was intended to mean.
that it is Lae tel for Christian men to engage in any part cf
the world, in any cause, at the command of a Monarch,
or a Prime Minister, or a Parliament, or a Commander
ir-Chief in the slaughter of his fellow merles-whom he
might never have seen before, from whom he had not re-
ceived the smallest injury, and against whom he had no
reason to feel the smallest touch of anger or resentment.
Having been brought up as I was, one would naturally be led
to think that running three thousand miles oft—for it is
nearly as far as that by reae-to carry on war with Russia in
the Crimea was a matter requiring very distinct evidence to
show that it was lawful, and that it was in any way points or
desirable. I studied the Blue-books with great care, I had
at that time the advantage of constant daily and hourly
communication with our lamented friend Mr. Cobden
(cheers) of whom I say little when I say that no man in our
time has shown greater sagacity than he did on this ques-
tion, and no man was a wiser counsellor to a private friend,
to the Government, or to the nation than he was during the
whole course of his petition life (Prolonged cheers.) I came
to the conclusion—it was impossible I could come to any
other—that that war, even not upon the principles of my sect
but upon the ordinary principles of all moral and Christian
men, was unnecessary and impotitic and unjust. I could tell
you how many persens, how many eminent and leading men
have now come to that opinion, but we have had sufficient
recantations within the lust month or two, so that I need
not introduce names here to prove what I say. But the
objects of that war were so extravagant as they weve then
offered to the people that now, when one looks back upon
it, one can hardy understand how they should have become
so much in favour of it. Some said that R 78613, with its
great military power, was going to weigh down upon all
Europe, and destroy the liberty of all the nations of Europe.
n epee said that Russia was about to take over to herself the
government of 1/0 millions of people in India, and drive
England out of that great territory. Some said that we went
to war for the purpose of liberating Poland. Some said that
it was to prevent the Russian Lets from eemirg from the
Black Sea down to the llediterraneir, Great indeed, I know,
were the reasons that were offered to thoughtless and un-
informed people to induce them to support the Government
and Parliament in that unhappy war. They were held
sufficient, and the war took place. That it was diaaStrous,
looking beck twenty years, I think all men must now admit.
I am not speaking of the valour of the troops or of their
failures in any contest in which they were engaged. I am
speaking of it from a far higher point of view than that. It
was a disastrous war ; and to us now looking back again it was
especially humiliating. I think Mr. Kir, giaka says more than
half a million of lives, first anct lad, were sacrificed in that
war. I think our share is supposed to approach about
%USG° men. A hundred millions of money was spent bras
—1 art not speaking of what other nations spent; I am not
addrossine other nations. The moment the war was over,
though there was a reduction of armaments, still our mili-
tary charges remained, and have remained Irene that time to
enspli dlnees sooltarl
el
Englandnt
th ftiar,
mw
aeodenvntathue
the
echdclotpt
ho
o commercialrus
(laughter),
auab h,
this at ten millions or mere higher than they were before ;
withn
ed,
t transactionsehr)t,
there
o whom i
thhopepethey will ever see again to gtehesuammsolutc proberaeblys no
f
nearly a hundred million ot money. It may be said, looking
back to those loans, that at this moment there is not
an ironclad that slumbers on the Turkish weters, there
which a &rvlan has been killed in the
yl
onet or a sword by
Is not a musket or a rifle or a b
war,
men and helpless women or children have or unarmeda4beenmu
r.
dered in Bulgaria, that was not purchased and paid for
by money borrowed from the credulous e 1
country. (Hear.) But after all, when the war
of this
ar was ove-
we were told that two great objects had been gainei. Gee
was that the fleet of the Russians in the Black Sea had
been so limited that there could be no dauger of its at-
tacking Constantinople, and that Russie'a treaty rights cf
protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte were
abolished, or that they were transferred to the concerted
action, or a sort of combination, of all the Great Powers,
uncier which Russia could do no further mischief, and Turkey
could be kept to something like humane and just treatment
of her Christian population. And what has happened four-
teen years after that? In the year 1870, the armies of