The Express.
London, England, 1859-01-29 00:00:00

(Stamped ld. Additional) [TWOPENCE.

them represented by primes creneeted with the tended
interest, end whose sympathies are altogether opposed I
to any policy deemed adverse to that interest. I believe
when this scheme of mine shall be thoroughly understood by
any impartial person, he will come to the conclusion that U
It were pared into a law, the landed interest would still
have—l will not my as great • preponderance In the House
of Commons—but it would still have s power in excess of
anything that it could justly claim. (Hear.) Bat then we
have that other question, the character of the House of
Lords. (Hear.) I want those gentlemen who are complain-
ing of injustice to the leaded interest to give no some ex-
planation of this ease. The whole mum of the House of
Lords Is territorial. There are • few lawyers end • few
soldiers, and a few men who are theft from some
cause or another, bat • most insignificant number
are put into that house little connected with the land.
Nineteen-twentieths of them are distinctly and cloudy
connected with the landed interest—that is the original
mem, end the still existent reason, why they find them-
e/elves is that house at all. (Hear.) I have erected, and I
am prepared to contend against all comers, that the House of
Lords does represent that which is emphatically the landed
interest of the country—not the agricultural, not the farm-
ing, not the county population interest ; and if I wanted
an authority for that assertion I refer you to what was said
by Mr. Macaulay, now Lord Macaulay. When speaking
during the posing of the Reform Bill, he said that the de-
cision of the House of Commons was the decision of the
erica, and that the decision of the Mouse of Lords
was virtually that of the great landed gentlemen of
England. Now will any man dispute with me this
point, that ell the interests of this fres country have
OA equal right to. • fair representation, end to fair
legislation from both houses of parliament—(applause)—
and that U the landed interest has a great preponderatece in
one hors, it has no right to assume to itself—and
we bid them beware of the attempt—(oheen)—that it should
also have • preponderance in the other house. (Cheers.)
Those discussions lead • good way if people will follow them.
(Hear.) They had, at any rate, to the question of equal
electoral distrusts, which I have never mooted, although fifty
newspapers in England have asserted to the contrary—
they lead also to the question of constituted changes in the
ehareeter of the House of Lords—(hear)—a question whiop
I sr not now about to discnee, and which is not now Wore
the public. At Birmingham, in the first speech I mods
there, I said the questiou you have to consider in reforming
the House of Commons is this—whether the Lords, and the
great territorial proprietors whom they represent,
ere to rule the people of Ragland through the House of
Commons, or whether the people of England are to rule
themselves through the Howe of Commons i (Loud cheers.)
Lame tell you Weis not • question between the inhabitants
of towns and the rural population and the inhabitants of
connties, the small freeholders, who were the backbone and
the Winch of freedom before the Reform Bill, and the
farmers therdrea They make no complaint against what
we redoing. The great territorialins complain it may be;
but the populations of the counties bre made no complaints.
Why, how can they look at the political condition of the
farmer ? To a farmer en election is not the pleasantest
time in the world. (Hear, host.) Unfortunately, we know
It too well, that to study politics, to form oonscieations con-
victions, to have e. desire to exercise his franchise honestly
for his country, is very liable to subject • farmer
to suffering akin to martyrdom. Do you think that
the farmer will ever get anything from what are
called the representatives of the landed interest? If
they ever get freedom—if they ever get
of expenditure—lnman of

removal of the
gantelawa—(eheering)—if they get any one of those things,
they will never get them, nor any one of them, through
the member for the landed proprietors in the counties, but
through the hie:suing power and combination and resolu-
tion of the freedom-loving and freedom-learning people of the
towns and cities of the county. (Great cheering.)
Some years ego I took great interest in the question of the
game laws. (Cheers.) I obtained a committee of the House
of Commons on the subject, and received hundreds of letters
from persona in all parts of the country. Now, depleallse-
Bove that if the members for the counties were the represen-
tatives of the farmers that the game lows would last for a
single Beaton P (Cheers.) There is not an intelligent farmer
who will not say that his interest is ours, and precisely the
&smear' ours. He was once deluded into the belief that protec-
tion was of great value to him ; but now enlightenment has
gone eo far that the county members themselves admit that
the repeal of the corn laws has been a great blessing to every-
body. Connected with the lend there Is not a eingle thing
which the electors of towns can fairly ask in which the great
bulk of farmers may not join with as much earnestness se
we do ourselves. Bat eo long as the aunty members repro-
/tut the great proprietor., the awe is wholly different.
They are the ruling clam—they make the government--
they enjoy the patronage—they profit by the expenditure.
Younger eons of the aristocracy look Omega invariably to the
great departments and services of the state for support, and
forty million pounds of taxes beyond the interest for the debt
is the great patrimony of that class. (Load Cheers) Let
me tell the farmers from this platform that there is not one
man in a thomend whom I have recently spoken to in the
North of England who would not hold out his hand to every
farmer in England, and my to him, "you are • son of industry
as I myself em; you lire in a country aiming to be more
tree. You have an interest in a just and an economical
pvernmenr, in peace, in just Iswe. Be my friend and my
brother for ever." (Loud and repeated cheers.) I ask you is
this great reform that ono are discussing worth the struggle
which a people must ever casks to at cure, or to enlarge its
freedom ? It is for the towns to decide, with such help
as the county popnl gem can give them. I ate told that
things are so comfortable that people do not are
about political reform. l'eople at the West-end of London
who walk from great houses in Grosvenor-rimer°, and still
greater houses in Pall-mall, do not know all that is paselog
in the minds of the people of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and
all the populous parts of the kingdom. I have teen sufficient
during the last two or three months to know that the people
do care for return.. (Cheers.) Are wo not the most industrious
people on the face of the earth P Hoe we not more steam
power, more perfect machinery, more complete means of loco-
motion, more products, agriculture and manufacture, more
of that which develops wealth, than can be found amongst
any other people on the hoe of the globe ; and yet, at this
moment, with all our boasted civilisation and freedom, I be-
lieve we have • greater number of paupers than of electors.
We bury every twenty or thirty years a million of paupers.
But there is always a new crop. There is always •
substratum of society lamentable to contemplate, in
which hitherto we have been unable to effect any
sensible change. This million of paupers is • very
inadequate representation of the suffering which exists.
Knowing this fact, and that many classes are verging en
peuperiem, let us ask =velem, why is it that all this
misery exists In the country, when we have such a rusgnitl-
cent power of production, and use able to invite from every
clime under heaven the surplus of every people to add
to our luxury and comfort P (Hear, hear.) Is
it the Creator, omnipotent and benevolent, or is
it man, with his crimes and blunders, that permits
such things? (Hear, hear.) Who have been your rulers
fur generations beck—who hove equendered your money—
who have shed your blood—for whom have the people of
England toiled, and ',sweated, and bled, and with what
results? Why, to be insulted now in the year 1859, end to
be told with lordly arrogance it is not fitting that we should
be admitted to the franehias in this kingdom. (Cheers.)
Leine not deal with reform without understanding that there
la a result to flow from It. If you want any'great measure,
what is the process of getting it ? You generally have to
contend for a principle almost to the point of civil war. The
ruling powers never think the people in earnest till they get
up to that point. So they say there are not now 100,000 men
on New Hall-bill, or large hada.s of men marching up to
London. I hops nothing of the kind will be necessary. But
the fact of their taunting us with the alltnoeinoo.f
udthigseisthaat
nop""fgreathatt tthheying aref fid
Is eipvereßeedy
wrested from a government
except by violent scion on the port of the people. When
you got the Reform Bill yon were within 24 hound revolu-
tion. When you got the repeal of the corn laws in 1848 you
had the help of the most stupendous famine that for many
hundred years has existed in any civilised country in the
world. What we want ts this—not that you should
transfer great political powers from great landowners
to great merchants or manufacturers; what we want
is, that equally through all parts of the kingdom all interest',
all wishes, all opinions should be admitted to the legislature;
that the members who get in parliament should feel that

they are not the members of any section, but the members of
the peat body of the people, and you would then find tbat
" *aka pew it would act gently, steadily, omnipotently
_ _

on the Hones of Commode, and instead of our having to
contend with our rulers for every change, we should
fled one sole incentive in the government. The
parliament and the people, the crown end the

government would be .stronger and more honoured,
and the people would be happier and more contented. I
have been charged with setting clue against clams, what it
ham been my wish to break down the wall of partition between
clines who have been too long separated, For twenty years
you have been aware of the objects of my political life.
(Chain.) I call you as wherein on my behalf. (Loud
and prolonged chews.) I reisenber how I worked with an
earnest and successful band—(eissen)—Villiers, Cobden,
Gibson, George Wilson (cheers) and many others,
whom I cannot mention, but who will ever live in
my remembrance. I remember mailing thous earnest

men who struck the stamp from the newspapers, and
established • free pries, the result of which bee been
that three hundred papers have sprung into life, camp
Mg information on every topic, every day, to almost
every house in the kingdom. (Cheese.) I have strives, bat
I grieve to my with less effect, to prevent the precious MU-
lags of ths people being squandered by guilty statesmen in
guilty were—(grunt cheer)—and now, consistently as I
believe with all this, I ask for my countrymen that, in ito3ord-
saes with the ermined their coneflettiou, they shall ell have
• free representation in the novas of Commons. That is •
just demand. (Chem.) I elk my fellow-oottalrymen to

speak for it with no faltering—no uncertain voice.
(Chinn.) Speak out and you will be listened to. (Cheers.)
Ask is tones that cannot be misunderstood, and that which
you ask will be most certainly granted. If you come of a
greet ancestry, as your historians say, do not disgrace them
now. (Cheers.) It you are, as you boast yourselves, the
heirs of freedom, rime, I beseech you, and take possession of
the heritage that is yours.
A vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the proceed-
ings•