The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-30 00:00:00

MANCHESTER AND BIRMINGHAM CONTRASTED.

Mr. Bright then proceeded to compare his rejec-
tion by his former constituents with his triumphant
return for Manchester :--

I say, looking back to all this, that if I have ever
done anythiug for my countrymen or for their interests in
any shape I am amply compensated by the abundant kind-
ness the) have shown to me during the last three years ;
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 enduring a tedious exile, subjected me to a
passionate and ungenerous treatment, I have the consola-
tion of knowing that their act was not approved by the
country, and that when my cause came up, by appeal to a
superior, because an impartial, tribunal, their verdict was
condemned and set aside by the unanimous judgment of
the electors and population of this great central city. I
shall nct attempt by the employment of any laboured
phrase to express to you what I felt at the time when you
conferred upon me the signal honour of returning me as

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one of your representatives to the House of Commons. I
am not sufficiently master of the English language to dis-
cover words that shall express what I then felt and what I
feel now to yeti for what you did then and for the reception
which you have given mo to-night. I never imagined for a
moment that you were prepared to endorse all my opinions
or to sanction every political act with which I was con-
nected ; but I accepted your resolution in choosing me as
meaning this—that you had watched my political career;
that you believed it had been an honest one ; that you were
satisfied I had not swerved knowingly to the right hand or
to the left; that the attractions of power had not turned
me aside ; that I had not changed my course from any
view of courting a fleeting popularity ; and, further, that
you were of this opinion—an opinion which I religiously
hold—that the man whose political carter is on a line with
his conscientious convictions can never be unfaithful to
his constituents or to his country. At the time of my
election you will remember that some newspapers which
commented upon it took the liberty of saying that I bad
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 respect to recent public policy. I
have had no proper opportunity before to-night to refer to
that statement, and I beg leave to tell those gentlemen
that they were and are, if they still hold the same opinions,
entirely mistaken ; 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 information which I have since re-
ceived have only served to confirm me in the opinions
which I had previously expressed. 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 argument upon the question
then before the country. 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—bat 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 en-
gaged was, after all, of no kind of value, because, whatever
was the war, whatever were the circumstances, I should
have taken exactly the same coarse, 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 misrepreentation which no person had a right to make.
I shall not trouble you more than a moment or two on this
point, but permit ins to say that the first time I spoke in
the House of Commons on the subject of the Russian war
was on the 3lst of Mara), 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 stud :

I am not going to enter into a discussion as to the opinion Of
those who contend for pease at any price and those who support
peace on religious grounds alone; but I am merely going to
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 at a proper, and iu some degree
worthy the cost and sacrifices we made to attain them

And 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 ran sway from the
subject before the house, but would meet me as having
discussed the question in that way and that way only.
Well I now tell you, what it ought not to be necessary to
say, that from that time until the time when I last spoke
ou the subject of the Russian war I confined myself en-
tirely to those points ; my facts, my arguments, and my
case were drawn from the despatches 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. 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 compensation
England has for the hundred millions of money she has
expended, or what compensation Europe has for the three
hundred millions squandered by all the parties engaged in
that frightful contest. It is not easy to say how much,
but of this we may be sure, that the squandering of
300,000,0001. sterling 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 twelve
months ago. The 40,009 lives which we lost in the Rus-
sian war some persons hold cheap. I do not. I think
that the grown men of Birmingham from eighteen years
of age to fifty—and there are, probably, not more than
40,000 of them—are something worth looking at by the
statesman and the Christian, and I say that the 40,000
lives which were lost to Europe deserved to be considered
before we rushed blindly into a war with Russia. For
myself, therefore, all I wish to point out to you is this,
that the man who hesitates before he squanders so much
blood and so much treasure has at least a right to be
received with a moderate amount of tolerance and for-
bearance. I intend to take an early opportunity of going
into the general question of foreign policy a little more at
length than would be proper this evening.

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

In alluding to the present aspect of this question,
Mr. Bright proceeded to say :

I now see before me, I am afraid to say how many persons,
who are by the present constitution of ibis country shut out
from any participation in political power. 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 qnestion of parliamentary
reform is before the country. I think we may fairly say
that that question occupies now something Eke a trium
pliant position, and at the same time a position of grea