The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-11 00:00:00

Mr. Layard and his Constituents.
Last evening Mr. A. H. Lsyard. M.P., for South-
wark, met his constituents at the Bridge-house
}Ltel, London-bridge, for the purpose of rendering
an account of his Parliamentary conduct, and ex-
pressing his views on the present state of public
affairs. The meeting was very numerously attended.
On entering the room the hon. member was loudly
cheered. He was accompanied to the platform by
many of his most influential supporters in the
borough.
Mr. G. NEWMAN occupied the chair, and briefly
introduced the business.
Mr. LAYARD then presented himself, and was
greeted with vehement cheering. He said it was a
custom among the ancient Egyptians when a man
died for his friends and enemies to assemble to say
all the good and evil they could of him, in order to
see whether he ought to have a ticket for crossing
the gulf which separated him from the realms of
the blessed. With us it was a custom to go through
that ceremony during a man's lifetime, if he hap-
pened to be a member of the Legislature ; and once
a year he was obliged to appear before his friends
and enemies to submit to all manner of cross-ques-
tionings and examination, in order, if possible, to
obtain a ticket which should carry him over the
gulf of a general election to the happy period of a
new Parliament. (Hear, and a laugh.) If he were
fortunate enough to obtain that pass from them he
should feel amply rewarded for presenting himself
to them on that and ocher occasions. It had been
a frequent practice with public speakers to abuse
the late session, and assert that nothing had been
done by Parliament. He did not quite agree with
that statement, but even if it were true there would
not, after all, be very much to complain of. Parlia-
ment must be a reflex of .public opinion in this
country, and if public opinion were anxiously bent
on the carrying of any great measure, they
might depend upon it that an opportunity would
be given in Parliament to those who were really .n
favour of them to make their influence felt. To use
a common expression, they could not have sensation
Parliaments if they had no sensation questions in
the country. Certainly, in the late session nothing
had been done to extend the suffrage or amend the
representation of the people ; but he did not infer
from that that the Liberal members who had pre-
viously taken a deep interest in those measures were
now less inclined to support them than they had
been a few years ago. Mr. Baines and Mr. Locke
King had both thought it unadvisable to press their
proposals relating to the borough and the county
franchise on the attention of the House. To have
dune so might halve damaged instead of promoted
the cause they sincerely had at heart ; and no doubt
they had shown a wise discretlon. Scarcely any
allusion to the extension of the suffrage was to be
met with in any of the recent " extra Parliamen-
tary utterances." He did not argue from that that
such an extension was not necessary; on the con-
trary, he believed that it would be a wise course to
concede it, and that it was eminently deserved by
the people. At former periods of our history, when
unexpected distress occurred among the community,
violent scenes of disturbance were witnessed and a
mutual estrangement of classes. That was because
the people then had not the advantage of a free
press and a widely-spread education. They did
not know exactly what their rights and their re-
lations to the rest of the community were, and
they immediately attributed to wrong causes the
sufferings which pressed upon them at the moment.
Now, however, the people were intelligent, und
instructed in the maxims of political economy, and
did not ascribe to the Legislature or the Govern-
ment a distress which neither could prevent. The
noble attitude of the cotton operatives of Lanca-
shire had brought into prominence the high quali-
ties of the British workman. He regretted deeply
the speeches lately delivered by two eminent men,
both personal friends of his—he meant Mr. Cobden
and Mr. Bright. They were painful speeches. (No.)
He was expressing his own opinion—(cheers)—and
must say he thought his hon. friends greatly mis-
understood the position of the people of England.
Fi,ving had some experience of most countries in
Europe, he maintained that, notwithstanding the
evils which existed in England—and God knew he
did not seek to make light of them—our labouring
classes were infinitely better off than the labouring
classes of many other European countries. He did
no now speak of our colonies or of the other side of
the Atlantic. It was stated in the speeches to which
he referred that if the working man had political
power he would have land, and that if he had land
he would be prosperous. Now, reversing that, did
the working man who had land necessarily enjoy
political power ? "Would those acquainted with the
condition of the labouring man in France, for ex-
ample, assert that he enjoyed or exercised political
power ? He said that he did not, and granting that
the franchise did not go so low with us as it should
do, yet he maintained that, indirectly, our working
classes exercised more political power than was
wielded by the same classes in any other country in
Europe. (Hear, bear.) Messrs. Cobden and Bright
had denounced the want of education in this coun-
try, affirming that our people were not educated up
to the level of other nations. (" They are not.") It
might sound like a paradox, but that arose from the
great amount of liberty enjoyed in England.
Prussia or any other continental State might pass
a law obliging every man to send his children to
t6chhie°°nl3ll
school, but was impossible to pass such a law in
rY. A large portion of our people insisted in
this matt:,
on being left alone, they would not have
a corapae,er t education, and claimed the right to
e,flucate their
children as they thought pro-
per. Bat tneeell
Education in England could not be
forced upon the
people by the State, and must be
greatly left to
wi,s really oppoPsreta tovlt ECrt, nobody amongst
its us
diffusion, and the worse
that cauid be said shoat
the aristocracy did not in-
eludeauc:aan accu4aliona a that against them. (Hear,
hear.) They heard a geed
deal of talk about " an
educated" democracy. No delah,
of any philosopher h it was the highest
e torulave
desideratant
educated
ad de-
mocracy ; but then it should ,at h
as to en :We it to recognise thoae
moraly ucatea,. so
;wtoed to thste restraints
which made a man feel what
of others as well ;.32 to himself, In
educated democra';n3,we
acomurnitri'ts
they had seen the
To him, indeed, the
hn_ hoY,
the uneducated.
the franchise was a quEstion of educations' question
; "e would
give the suffrage to the man who ipat we inte.
who
gence to use it, but not to
himnot
suchintelligence. (Cheers.) Tl.e last session coal Lot
altogether be called a useless session. for it had
nessed the springing up of a desire for economy.
Tn., great object of Mr. Gladstone had been to in.
Cale-tie the importance of a redaction of expends•
turf; and lest session he had been enabled to lower
the tea duties and the income-tax. True, the pro-
posal to deal with public charities had to be with-
drawn, ; but ail who heard or read Mr. Gladstone
s
masterly speech on that subject would feel that an
alteration in the discreditable state of these institu-
tions must oneday be attempted. (Hear.) Having
alluded to the removal of St. Thomas's Hospital
from that district as a grossviolation of the founder s
will, Mr. Layard proceeded to the foreign questions
which had been discussed during the past session.
Messrs. Cobden and Bright told them that they
Ought to have nothing to do with such subjects, yet,
strange to say, two-thirds at least of their own re-
e!ht speeches were devoted to foreign politics. (A
Voice " Den's run them down.") He did not run
aTil,..Yh'aY down, but met argument by argument.
It
was l •
potr,ii •
pthssible to keep this country from fos
maintain that s.
Englishmen were determined to
Pace among the nations of the world
to which they were
and their noble traditions. entitled by their intelligence
Did they believe that
with an extended suffrage they would have no in-
terference with Foreign
clatst ion s ? Why, the sym-
pathy lately shown for Poland had emanated more
from the lower classes than f
the Government
takingrnm thte higher, and,
fio far from
lead,he
h they
had, as it were, been compellidt
tav°ztohfotetnnh tsaeidpopu-
lar ardour. (Hear, hear.)
the United States did not meddle
. That
but was
affairs, but kept themselves to themselveersPe°l3le's
might be possible for them, not possible for
ns. As a member of the Europeanf family, e
w Were
in a totally different category rom America. He
policy of
was not advocating the odious
interven-
tion, a policy adopted by tbis country in former