The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-30 00:00:00

MR. BRIGHT AT BIRMINGHAM.

Mr. Bright, Mr. Dixon, and Mr. lluntz aeldressed
an immense meeting of their constituents at Birming-
ham on Monday evening. The gathering took place
at Bingley Hall, a building capable of accommodating
20,000 persons, and there were a dozen members of the
House of Commons upon the platform. Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, the Mayor of Birmingham, presided.
The reception of Mr. Bright was of an enthusiastic
character. A resolution of continued confidence in
the members, rejoicing at Mr. Bright's restoration to
health, and regarding with great satisfaction his in-
tended resumption of his duties in the House of Com-
mons, was passed by an enormous majority over an
amendment directed against Mr. Muntz.

Mr. Bright, In the course of his speech, said :
Since I was here last there have been great changes—not
here, lam happy to say, but elsewhere ; changes under which
the political power exercised in Parliament has been shifted
from one side of the House to the other, changes under which
a new set of occupants are found upon the Treasury Bench.
Now, it has been said very often within the last year that
people—not the people of Birmingham, but the people of the
United Kingdom—were a little tired of legislation and of great
measures, and that they preferred, at least for a time, to have
rest and quiet, If too much had been done, and if nothing
more was to he done, there has been a wonderful consistency
In the action of the constituencies, because they have discovered
twelve gentlemen whom they have placed on the Treasury
Bench—twelve gentlemen whose special recommemlition is
that they never did anything (cheers and laughter), and
further, that if they attempted to do anything it was merely
to prevent their opponents from doing something. (Laughter.)
Now, when this new Government was formed, being some-
what of an old stager in Parliamentary matters, I was asked
how I thought they were likely to get on, and I answered,
with a simplicity which is commendable, that I thought they
would get on for a good while pretty well if they would keep off
politics. (Larghter.) But then let me remind you that in
two Chambers and under one roof in Westminster there
assemble about a thousand gentlemen from all parts of the
United Kingdom, whose special object in coming together
Is to talk politics. Therefore it was not easy for the
Government altogether to keep off prditics ; and, indeed,
instead of doing that or attempting to do it, we were sur-
prised to find that they plunged almost at once into eccle-
siastical affairs—the most exciting and explosive branch of
political affairs. (Cheers and laughter.) Last July I was
spending some time in the extreme north, on the shores of
the Pentland Firth. It was a much pleasanter atmosphere
down there than in the House of Commons (a laugh), and I was
obliged to pick up my information from the papers that
came down twice, or at most three times in the week I
pictured to myself what was going on in Westminster, and
it was a surprising picture. There was the Duke of Rich-
mond, a solemn Scotch proprietor, though not a Scotchman
Joint laughter), but a man, I should say, incapable of
recklessness and of enthusiasm. There was the Lord
Chancellor, with his wig on, and his wisdom under it
—(a laugh)—importing, as I thought, some Orange and
North of Ireland notions into the affairs of the Established
Church. I saw these two in one House and the Prime
Minister in another engaged in applying a match to every
bit of gunpowder they found in their way. (A laugh.) First
of all they dealt with the Church of Scotland, and in the
Church of Scotland there has been a thing called patronage
—that is, the appointment of ministers in the Church rested
mainly with the proprietors of the land. There was not
much in it, it was of no money value. In Scotland there has
been none of that remarkable corruption which existed in
connexion with Church patronage in England. But then
you must bear in mind what one of our own poets has said
of learning. He said :

"A little learning is a dangerous thing!
"Drink deep or taste not."
And so the little patronage of Scotland was found to be
most dangerous, while the Committee of the House of Lords
has recently decided that the enormous and corrupt patron-
age of the Church of England was a thing to be carefully
guarded from destruction. Now what Parliament did was
this—to transfer the patronage in Scotland from the landed
proprietors generally to the congregations. They thought
it would prop up the Church and add to its popularity—
perhaps make it as popular as the Free Church. But they
seemed to forget that it was necessary to place reliance on
the Church in the heart of the people, and by that means
only could they make it really and permanently popular.
(Cheers.) Well, the Church appears, as far as I can gather,
to be very much puzzled what to do with its new powers;
but the Free Church of Scotland (the secession from the
Scotch Church) and the United Presbyterian have decided
by a remarkably unanimous vote that the ecclesiastical
affairs of Scotland can never be placed on a satisfactory basis
until the Established Church of Scotland is disestablished
and set free. (Cheers.) Well, the result of this is that the
Government, by its measure, have raised something like a
new and great question in Scotland. They have stirred a
fire which in all probability will no longer slumber, and there
is every likelihood that in the future elections for Scotland
the question of disestablishment will come up as a great and
main question before almost every constituency in that king-
dom. (Hear, hear) Well, after dealing with the Scotch
Bill, there came the English Bill, and the English Bill was
not a Bill of the Government at all, it was introduced by the
Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, the Archbishop of Can-
terbury is a very moderate man. (A lyigh.) No man
who was not believed to be a moderate man would be
elevated to that high office. But an old friend of mine once
told me, he found the most reckless and dangerous things.
were often proposed and done by very moderate men.
(Cheers.) Well, the Archbishop brought his Bill into the
House, it was nourished and cherished by the Lord Chan-
cellor and by Lord Shaftesbury; it was popular; it very
soon passed the House of Lords; it came down to the
House of Commons, and In the House of Commons it was
found to be still more popular. Now, may I tell you
a little of my experience about the House of Commons?
I never knew a House of Commons unanimous and en-
thusiastic about a thing except when it did not know
what it was doing and where it was going. I have known
it twice enthusiastic and almost unanimous. Once when
Lord John Russell brought in his BilL (Interruption, dur-
ing which Mr. Bright paused.) Once I was saying, when
Lord John Russell brought in his Bill on the subject of
ecclesiastical titles among the Roman Catholics; the House
was enthusiastic and almost unanimous; the Bill passed by
enormous majorities. The Bill was of no use except to
irritate and exasperate, and it was many years afterwards
repealed by a still more unanimous House, and everybody
who agreed to pass it, I presume, now wishes the matter
to be forgotten. (Laughter.) Another time when the
House was unanimous and enthusiastic was when it agreed
to the declaration of war with the Russian Empire.
I was in the House on that occasion. (Another
Interruption prevented Mr. Bright from continuing
for some moments.) I was in the House when that declara-
tion of war was agreed to. I spoke against it. (Applause.)
Well, what has happened since? There was scarcely a news-
paper at that time which did not treat me with scorn and
contempt and insult on account of the course I took. I
suffered much from public obloquy, and yet now I believe
there are very few men to be met who do not believe that
the House of Commons was foolish and did a very un-
patriotic and evil thing. (Applause.) Well, the Bill—l
mean the Archbishops' Bill—came down to the House of
Commons. It was very popular. The Prime Minister
was very glad to have anything in his hand that was
popular. He tacked himself to the Archbishop's apron,
and the Bill passed the House. (Laughter.) Well,
what is the chaige made by this Bill? I ask
you citizens of this great country, residents in this great
city, surrounded as you are by circumstances in connexion
with this question Which demand your most serious con-
sideration,—What is it that this Bill charges? Why does
it exist? It is brought as a charge against some thousands,
I believe, of the clergy of the Church of England that
their conduct is lawless and that they require to be
curbed (Hear, hear.) Now, who are these clergy? I am
not going to make any ill-natured or unfair—indeed, I
should say, any attack et all upon the Church, but I am
asking you to consider the path on which you are invited
to traveL Who are these persons? Some thousands of
the clergy of the Church of England—men who know very
little of the Dissenting ministers—say that in opposition
to Dissenting ministers they are gentlemen. (" Oh 1 ")
They say they are the sons of gentlemen ; that they have
had the advantage of being educated at our ancient Univer-
sities; that there they have been accustomed to asssociate
with the great wealth and the high blood of the peerage, and
they tell us they are set over us by the State as instructors
in morals and religion. ("Oh 1" and laughter.) And yet
their own friends, the Archbishops, and Bishops, and
Ministers of State—declare that their conduct is so lawless
that it is necessary to have special legislation to keep them in
order. (Applause and laughter) Now, a very dear old
friend of mine, the late General Perronet Thompson, once
said to me when there had been some talk somewhere of a
revolt of troops, that it was a very dangerous thing
when the. extinguisher takes fire. (Laughter and ap-
plause). He thought there was not much chance of the
conflagration being put out. (Laughter.) And 80, as they
had proved that our State instructors in morals and
' religion have got into this condition of lawlessness that they
required special legislation to curb them, then I think things
are come to a serious pass, and it behoves all men and
all women who think upon public questions at all to
consider the position in which we are now placed. We
know there are special cases in which there is special
legislation. There is special legislation with regard to the
publicans. They sell articles which promote, unfortunately,
disorder and crime, and even madness (hear, hear) ; and i
special legislation s necessary for some other businesses—
marine-store dealers for one. (Laughter.) Some years
ago there was special legislation for a small and brutal class
of men who go by the name of garotters. (Hear.) Ills said
now that there will be some speciallegislation for persons who
commit crimes of violence, and particularly for men who are
so extraordinarily savage as to beat their wives. (Applause.)
Well, all this may be necessary. I do not argue whether it
is so or not, but there is something far more dreadful than
this, and that is ;to find men—thousands of them—upon
whose consecrated heads the hands of the Bishops have been
placed, so lawless as to make it necessary to have special
legislation to curb them. (Laughter.) Now, Sir, in a
great body like the Church of England there will always be
—there must be—some considerable divergencies of opinion,
and it is on account of this divergence that the Govern-
ment have assisted to carry a new Act of Uniformity.
Now, just over two hundred years ago there was a great and
celebrated Act passed which has gone by the name of the
Act of Uniformity. Under it at least two thousand men,
the bulk of them learned and pious men, clergymen of the
Church of England, were rejected from that Church. It
was a most blessed succession for the country (hear), because
no doubt it laid the foundation of a party which has ever
since in England been the consistent friend of freedom and
Improvement in our legislation. (Hear,liear ) But tinder
that 0,9 POTECti 09 well? ;00094 nu 1191 Q wll9 were

farthest from Rome. Now, under the Act passed last
Session, the persons who are to be restrained, and, if pos-
sible. retained, are those against whom it is charged that
they are nearest, and continually going nearer to Rome.
(Laughter.) Now, there is great disappointment—there
must be—to every thoughtful and true man and woman in
the Church of England, and to many outside her, -with this
state of things, because you know—you have been accus-
tomed to read matters of this kind,—you know quite well
that one of the Feat arguments in favour of the Established
Church is that it represses all zeal which tends to disorder.
(Cheers.) And not only represses zeal, but that it is a bul-
wark against that Church from which our fathers separated
themselves 300 years ago. They say that what the Church
of England wants is not zeal, but a gentlemanly conformity
to it (" Oh 1" and laughter)—and they are very angry now
that somehow or other this zeal is creeping into the Church.
Well, it crept into the Scctch Church about thirty years
ago. At that time the fermentation was so violent that
the hoops of the barrel or hogshead gave way, and the
staves tumbled apart, and an immeasurable quantity of
sound ecclesiastical liquor was lost (Laughter) Well,
the very same thing is now happening to a certain extent
in the Church of England. I don't say whether the zeal
is wise or not ; there is very much zeal that is unwise, and
not very much which is wise at all times. I don't say whether
it is, but I say it is earnest and conscientious, and probably it
is dangerous (hear, hear) ; but not so dangerous perhaps to the
truth as to the political associations connected with it- (I-lear,
hear.) Then it is said, and very fairly—and I don't object to
those who say it—that the Church of this country is a State
Church—an Act of Parliament Church ; that, in point of fact,
it is, not a religion only, but a political institution t that
it is, as it has been described by a member of the House
of Peers of my acquaintance, a branch of the Civil Ser-
vice, and that it must obey. (" Oh 1" and laughter.) If you
want to hear about the very last utterances • upon that point
—I mean about the obedience of the Church—l will read
three linos from the speech of a learned friend of mine, de-
livered only the other day in the city of Oxford, the late
Solicitor-General to the late Government. He was very
strong last year for this Bill, and he is strong. I suppose;
or will be, for succeeding measures following in its track.
You know I am a Nonconformist (hear, hear), and I en-
deavour to speak gently of matters of this kind (laughter),
but Sir W. Harcourt said this—that if one set of priests
refuse to comform we shall find others, as we have found
before, who will obey the national faith. Now, he does not
say, who will obey their consciences, or who will obey the
law of God as they read it, but who will obey the national
faith. Now, some years ago I recollect a somewhat
irreverent writer suggesting as a matter of economy that
when our judges were too old to continue their duties as
judges effectively they should be translated to the bench of
bishops. (Laughter.) He argued that by doing that you
would save the pensions of the judges, and you would in-
fuse a very large amount of practical wisdom into the
bench of Bishops. (Laughter.) Now I should not suggest
anything of that kind, but my learned friend the member
for Oxford says we can have others who will conform to the
national faith, We can turn out any of those men who do
not conform, and we can put others in their places. I doubt
If he will find it very easy to procure pious and earnest and
learned men to take these offices on the-kind of terms which
he offers in this language which I have quoted. (Hear, hear.)
I think he must have forgotten somewhat the rock from
which he was hewn, and he must be thinking more of the
profession to which he is now attached. (Laughter.)
No doubt the members of the profession take either
side of the case. (Laughter.) The brief comes from
the plaintiff or from the defendant, and probably is
equally welcome ; the fee comes from this side or
from that, and it adds to the emolument of his pro-
fessional services, and he may have thought the position in
the Church—a position the most elevated and the most
sacred to which man can be called—that a position of this
kind can be taken by men and numbers of men without
caring in the least what it is that their conscience teaches
them or what they believe to be the truth, but that merely
for so many hundreds a year they will willingly accept this
office and conform to what he calls the national faith.
(Hear, hear.) Well, Ills quite true that the Government
does order and can order what shall be uniform in the
Church just as your corporations can determine everything
about the helmet hats and truncheons of the police, and there
is no doubt whatever that as faras regards the dress and cere-
monies and position of the clergy it is in the power of Parlia-
ment to make stringent laws and to enforce conformity to
the rules which it shall lay down; but then, bear in mind,
by these Acts of Parliament you cannot touch the hearts,
and reasons, and consciences of men. The pulpits are free
everywhere. Your prayers are written and printed and
fixed, but the sermons are left to the judgment and
conscience of the preacher, and you may rely upon it that'
among the vast number of the clergy of the Church of
England any attempt thus to bind them down in a sort
of straight waistcoat of this kind, though for the moment
it may appear to have a temporary success, must
ultimately and wholly fail (Hear, hear.) Now, it is said
that there are about 20,000 ministers in the Church of
England, and if kalf the population in England and
Wales are connected by association and by affection
with that Church there are 10,000,000 persons connected
with it. Now if it is to be said that within the borders of
the Church no latitude is to be allowed, that if only outside
any freedom of opinion and practice is to be permitted,
I venture to say that the days of the Establishment are
numbered. (Cheers.) You may rely upon it that zeal will
not for all time sacrifice freedom even to keep the emolu-
ments and dignities of the State Church. (Hear.) Now, I am
not defending the new manners and new practices and the
new opinions. I have no sympathy with them whatsoever.
I could dispense with some things that I think are super-
fluous in the Church, even upon the view of the Evangelical.
I should-be the very last man to do anything to them, but
I may endeavour to show you that the course which the
Government has entered upon and which Parliament, ac-
cepting the invitation, followed them in last year is a
perilous course, and it is worth while for the people of Eng-
land—the religious people of England, the people inside the
Church quite as much as those outside it—to consider this
question in a very different light, and to ask themselves
whether this vast question can any longer be committed
to the care and disposal and managements and votes and
speeches of the two Houses of Parliament. (Cheers.) . . .

ear, I

After adverting to Sir William Harcourt's speech at
Oxford, Mr. Bright went on to notice the dissensions in the
Church, and especially alluded to the refusal of the Bishop
of Lincoln to give a Wesleyan minister the title of "Rever-
end,' and the treatment which Bishop Colenso received
when he came to this country recently on behalf of the
Ka ftirs.—Af ter a lengthy consideration of the Church as an Es-
tablishment, Mr. Bright concluded his speech by referring to
Mr. Gladstone's abandonment of the Liberal leadership,
and remarked that only those who had known him long
in the Cabinet and the House of Commons could appreciate
the magnitude of the loss.
The meeting was also addressed by Mr. Dixon and Mr.
Muntz.

A resolution was subsequently carried expressing the
regret with which the meeting received the announce-
ment of Mr. Gladstone's retirement from the leadership of
the Liberal party, its high tense of his personal and
public character, and its gratitude for the distinguished
services which he has rendered to the country in its political,
financial, and ecclesiastical reform.