The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-11-20 00:00:00

MR. BRIGHT AT BIRMINGHAM.

A crowded meeting was held at Birmingham Town Hall
on Tuesday night to celebrate the opening of the new rooms
of the local Junior Liberal Association, a club founded some
two years ago, as explained by the chairman in his opening
speech, " for those who do not care or cannot afford to be-
long to more expensive institutions, and especially for the
membsrs of the Liberal party." Mr. Chamberlain, M.P.,
the president of the club, presided, and in his opening
speech explained the advantages and attractions of the
Janior Liberal Club, and adduced the success of the
Institution as a proof that that town had had a share in
organising the Liberal Party, and maintained 'that Liberals
must not relax their exertions. Alluding to the change
of Government, he said that Conservatives com-
plained that the Liberals had not undone in six months
all the mischief that their predecessors had done in six
years, but he added that the Government had not forgotten
it, pledges er changed its opinions He then referred to
foreign policy, reviewing recents events, and declariag that
Ministers would maintain the course they had marked out
for themselves, and which he considered had obtained the
approval of the country. Tarning to Ireland, he spoke of
the difficulty of the situation, and paid a high compliment to
Mr. Bright for his devotion to her interests.
Mr. Bright then rose, and received a most enthusiastic
greeting, the vast audience cheering again and again for
two or three minutes. After defending at some length the
wisdom of forming clubs for the cultivation of the minds of
young men on politisal subjects, Mr. Bright said
We have been told by an authority which some people
deem a very high authority—l cannot say Ido on matters
of this kind—that the affairs of Europe and the affairs
of the world'are conducted and determined by monarchs
and statesmen. You have heard of that phrase, and
it looks to nie very much like a shutting out, not
only of the young men I see before me, but of the
middle-aged aud of the old men whose experience
may sometimes be of value. (Hear, hear.) For my
share, I do not learn from history that everything has
been wisely done that has been done by monarchs and by
statesmen. On the contrary, almost all the greatest crimes
of history have been committed and all the greatest
calamities in history have been brought upon mankind
through the Instrumentality—the direct instrumentality—
of monarchs and of statesmen. (Cheers.) I would rather
have the judgment of an intelligent and a moral people in-
formed as to their interests and their duty. They have no
ambition to go wrong; they are not subject to the tempta-
tions which beset monarchs and statesmen; they are not
naturally the creatures and the victims of the perpetrators
of intrigue; they themselves, if they err, err from mistake
and from-ignorance; and it is because we wish them not to
err that we ask young men everywhere to make themselves
acquainted with the political interests of their country.
I spoke of the crimes of these great leaders of mankind and
the calamities they had brought' upon us—upon some, not
always upon us. I take the case for a moment of the
country which is our next neighbour, Francs; for look at
what France has suffered for the last 100 years—how much
of war, bow much of insurrection, how much of anarchy,
how much of expenditure and of needless taxation! You
recollect—some of you come very near it in time of life, it
was only a very few years before my life began—when the
French Revolution broke out, and when there was an explo-
sion, a catastrophe, which shook all Europe and impoverished
in the course of its career many nations, *which sacrificed
many hundreds of thousands of lives, and which for many
years unsettled all the relations and systems which had
leeen existing on the continent of Europe. (Hear, hear.)
But now, when it is after the time, when we can look back,
and when we can dissect and reflect upon it, ills not at all
difficult to tell how these things came about. If there had
been no Louis XIV. with his continued wars, if there had
been no Louis XV. with his odious proffigacies, no Louis
XVI. with his feebleness, and if there had been no exactions
of the nobility of France and terrible corruptions of the
clergy of France—if these things had not existed the catas-
trophe which followed could not have taken place.
(Cheer.) But the population of France were little ad-
vanced, almost not advanced at all, in freedom. They
had no political clubs in those days. The young men were
taught nothing of politics, their population were subject
absolutely to the central authority, and the powerful
classes that surrounded it led the country to the disasters to
which I have referred. Now, let us cross the Atlantic and
come to the transactions of our own time—l refer to the
United States of America. If all the people in the Northern
States who hold no slaves—confining my observations to
them—if they had been instructed on that question, if they
had been unanimous in the condemnation of slavery, it is
almost certain, I believe it thoroughly, that that great crime
against human nature might have been removed long before,
and removed without the sacrifice of more than a thousand
millions sterling in money, and more than a sacrifice of
half a million of human lives. (Cheers.) Ii these
tremendous events come upon countries and curse their
populations by reason mainly of the ignorance of the
people, of their unacquaintance with political principles
and with the true path of pvlitical success, is it not a com-
mendable thing that there should be clubs, if clubs be an
adequate and good mode of spreadinz political opinion
among the people? (Hear, hear.) And stepping a little
further, leaving France and its disasters, and America and
its great Civil War, with its grand results, we come to our
own country, and we behold now one portion, and not
an insignificant portion, of one of the three kingdoms
which should form the United Kingdom—we find Ire-
land suffering, not from anything that the existing
Legislature has done, not from anything that has been done
even during the reign of the present monarch, but suffering
from things that have been done any time within the last
two centuries; and if our forefathers had understood these
questions even as well as we now understand them, these
evils could never have been inflicted upon the Well
people. (Cheers.) . The monarchs and statesmen within
the last two or three centuries have done a great deal to
confiscate the soil of Ireland. They have planted in that
country great proprietors, who went over from England and
Scotland mainly from England —and who were settled
there as an English garrison in a conquered country. There
was no attempt ever made to win ever the conquered to
contentment with their new political relations with England
no attempt whatsoever to make them feel that the English
power, even though it was dominant, was still jus. and
equal and merciful in the treatment of the Irish people.
They were an uncivilised people in those days, and they
were treated with a barbarity of which we feel ashamed
when we know that our fathers were in some way con-
nected with it, and we all regret—l trust every man in
England, I hope the most obtuse and conservative, will now
regret—that there ever existed in Ireland a code which we
call the Penal laws, by which a system of unmitigated and
cruel persecution was pracnised upon the Catholic native
population ot that island. (Cheers.) What are the results
in our day? It has been said by the same high authority
that I before quoted (a laugh) that a great part of the
troubles of Ireland came from its being surrounded by it
melancholy ocean. (Great laughter.) Well, I believe all
islands are surrounded by some kind of an ocean (great
laughter), and all oceans that I have yet seen wear at times
a very melancholy aspect (renewed laughter); but it is not
that the soil of Ireland is not green enough or that the
ocean is not prolific enough in. fish. In fact, there
is nothing in the geographical position of Ireland
that in the slightest degree accounts for the trouble
which Ireland has been to itself and to this country,
with which it is now politically allied. But we
find that, as a consequence of a policy which we all
now regret and condemn, Irish patriotism, as apart
from what is called patriotism in this country, has con-
sisted to a large extent in hatred of Protestantism, hatred
of landlords, and hatred of England. If the English people
had been informed, if they had been capable within the last
two centuries of judging fairly of these matters, there cannot
be a doubt that if, in addition to this, the Government
had been merciful and just -to Ireland, Ireland would be as
closely welded at this moment to Lin:land as Scotland is—
(applause)—and it would be as difficult to raise the flag
of insurrection or discontent in Ireland as it would be
for Prince Cha, lie again to appeal with his flag in Scuthied.
(Applause.) What is the condition of teat unfortunate
ieland at this moment? 1 spoke of it as in a state of social
insurrection when I was here, I think, some thne last
winter. At this moment it is exhibiting in a portion of
the country a social revolt of a very strange and extra-
ordinary character. It is not apparently so much a rising
against the Government as against the owners of the soil.
There is through some counties—in some districts a
general, at least, a considerable, repudiation of contracts.
There is practically a 'miring of the land, from which they
believe that their fathers were driven out by combination,
by terror, by outrage, occasionally, but hitherto in very
few instances, by murder. They are demanding the over-
throw of the system under which they assert that there is no
adequate reward for their industry, and ne security for
the homes of their families. Now, when a nation or a con-
siderable portion of a nation, or the population of several
counties, can fairly or do generally make a statement of
this kind, it appears to me to be one of those which demand
the earnest consideration and attention of statesmen and of
legislators (hear, hear); and not of statesmen and of legis-
lators only, but of the whole people of the country, who
are allied with them; for we have all a great interest in the
welfare of Ireland, and the man who insults Ireland or in-
jures it, who tramples upon it, who denies Irishmen their
just rights, lean enemy of England as much as an enemy of
Ireland. (Cheers.) What is this system aoainst which so
many of the Irish people are Just now contending, and are
even in a certain sense in open revolt? It comes down
from the system of great proprietors established by the
monarchs and statesmen of two centuries ago (hear, hear)—
great proprietors with great estates, and with estates many
of them mortgaged and embarrassed, transmitted from
generation to generation, under the command only, to a
large extent, of nominel and life owners, often of men who
were absentees, who probably had never walked or driven
over the whole of their estates. The rights of property, so
far as the collection of rent is concerned, have been strenu-
ously maintained and insisted upon, and the duties of pro-
perty in a vast number of cases have been, for the most
part, greatly neglected. (Hear, hear.) Now, how has all
this been caused? We must be quite sensible that, when
these great properties had been given to these great pro-
prietors, the great properties would not have remained great
in one hand unto this day it there had been free transactions
with regard to land, as there is with regard to all the vast
wealth which there lain the houses and shops and warehouses
and factories of Birmingham. (Cheers) No; but there was
a system of law and of custom, and custom created by law
and based upon it, by which these great estates were handed
down from father to eldest son, and from eldest sen, when
he became a father, to his eldest son. There were systems
of entail and settlement by which a man was only a life 1
owner of the property. He was not able to sell it-- he had"
not himlelf to improve it. He received the rent from
it and the most that he could get out of it, but
he had no general Interest to exert himself on behalf
of :he property or of those who lived upon it, and he
spent generally almost nothing of his income in the en-
deavour to improve the property of which he was the
nominal owner and lord. Then, besides this, there has
been always in this country, so far as any of us can re-
member, and a much longer time, costliness and diflitilty
of transfer, being great obstacles in the way of the division
and the dispersion of landed property. The consequence
has been that greet estates have not been broken.up as
they otherwise would have been, and the population is
found in our day almost entirely separated and divorced
from the sell on which they live, and which for their
living they must cultivate ; and the general results,
stated in figures—l stated them here in figures not
long ago but they are so startling and so impressive
that in one sentence I shall place them before you
again, are as follows :—The proprietors of land in Irelauci
are few in number for a country so large, and those who
hold estates, properties under which, or a part of which
they can let—l mean estates of SO or 100 acres—over those
I suppose there are not more than 12,000 or 14,000 owners
in Ireland. One-third of Ireland is possessed by 292 per-
sons ; one-half of Ireland is possessed by 744 persons—l
suppose about as many as are in that gallery at the
other end of the hail; and two-thirds of the whole
island are in the possession of I,942—perhaps a little
more than half the persons that are present now in this
building. On the other side, there are more than 600,000
tenants. There is a great fact-600,000 families, being at
least from 2i to 3 millions of persons, dependent upon the
soil, competing with each other for the possession of a farm,
having no variety of occupation as there is in England,
having one way, and that only—the way out of the count's,
—to escape from the difficulties in which they find them-
selves. These 600,000 tenants are living, as they allege, for
the most part, in a condition of continual insecurity. The
rent may be raised half-a-crown an acre this year, and
another half-a-crown next. If the farm passes from the
father to the son, or from the widow to the son, or from a
farmer to his brother, or to another farmer of new family,
there is an occasion where it is easy to propose some addi-
tion to the rent, The addition may not be so large as to
shock the farmer and to drive him to cease from any at-
tempt to enter upon the farm. By little and little rent is
added. The irritation of the tenant becomes greater and
greater He sees the end to which he is being driven. Ile
' cannot live upon the farm, and he must give it up, and he
mot find himself homeless in his own country, and thus
there has grown up in Ireland—and, of course, the most in
the poorest districts—an irritation and e discontent which
is the notorious and the universal material on which social
or political insurrections are generally based. Now, we
must not forget that in Ireland men who hold the land hold
the homes and lives of the people. (Applause.) No matter
disguising it or putting it in language less unpleasant;

that is the fact, sad if yoa read the letters which have been
published in the newspapers during the last few months, or
re:kd any of the pamphlets or books which were written
upon it, or if you go back to any of the reports which are
to be found in the Blue-book published by the House of
Commons, you will come to that conclusion—there is no
escape for it whatever—that there has been a time within
my recollection when 60 persons out of every 100 in Ireland
were receiving relief in some shape or other, and the normal
and common condition of great numbers of peron in the
extreme west of Ireland, where the country is poorest,
where the land is poorest, and where the climate is the
most precarious, is one of the most abject and hopeless
poverty; and in the country with this state of things, as
you may imagine, there is the most fierce and constant com-
petition for land, and there it is in the power of the land-
owner everywhere and his agent, so far as the interests of
the people are concerned—it is in their power to propose,
and constantly to obtain an increase of rent. No, Ido not
believe that the rent all over Ireland is an excessive rent if
the land were farmed with a full seourity, by an instructed
tenantry, and with an adeq,uate capital—(applause)—but
one of the results of this system of insecurity is this —that
tenants will not cultivate their lands according to the best
of their knowledge or according to the best of their capital,
for to improve their cultivation is followed too often by the
increase of rent. (Hear, hear.)
- - - -

Mr. Bright having referred at some length toast legisla-
tion in respect to Ireland, proceeded to speak in eulogistic
terms of the character ef the Irish population, and in the
eourse of his remarks, said :—I have lately had the
opportunity of discussing with men connected with
the making of railroads in Ireland—engineers, con-
tractors, and persons eminent in that way; and yet I
am bowls' to say that I have beard an the whole
nothing but a good opinion, a sympathetic opinion, of the
general character of the Irish population with which they
were connected. The farmers are, in the main, industrious
and honest. There has been no country in Eurcpe, no part
of the United Kingdom, in which rents have been more gene-
rally and constantly and fairly paid than in Ireland until
the recent troubles. (Hear, hear.) The Irish farmer is an
economist ; he saves even to penuriousness. The great
object of his life is to enable him to give a small portion to
his daughters on their marriage. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to the proposed remedial measures, Mr. Bright
said :—What they want is this—to insure in some way, by
some mode, that when a man hae his hottse over his head—
hunt it himself, probably, or some preceding member of his
family may have built it—and his little farm around him,
he should not incessantly be taught that he may any
day have notice to quit and be turned out of his farm aria
home, and that the rent should not te constantly added to
until even going out of his farm is a less evil than remain-
ing in it. He wants some security from the constant torture
and menace which he feels hanging over him, and he wants
also that there should be some broad and generous and
complete system established by the Government by which
landowners who are willing to sell, of which there must be
many now (laughter)—that were landowners are willing to
sell, and there are many at all times, and where tenants are
able and willing to buy, then through the instrumentality
of this Government Commission you may gradually, year by
year, add to the number of the proprietary farmers in Ire-
land. (Cheers)
In conclusion, Mr. Bright adverted to the magnitude and
difficulties of the Irish question, which he commended to
his audience as deserving the study and the earnest atten-
tion of every man now in his youth, and who wishes as he
grows older to be of any service in the public affairs of the
great nation of which he has the honour to be a citizen. or