The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-13 00:00:00

the people. (Cheers.) Well, let us see how it does
so. The census gives the number of nearly seven
millions of grown men in the United Kingdom. If
you take the whole number of those who vote for
members of the House of Commons, you will find
it to be 1,330,000 voters. If you deduct from those
such as have double entries, and all who lose their
qualification from one year to another, you will find
the number brought to less than 1,200,000 voters ;
and if at this election every man was polled, and if
there was every kind of arrangement, such as cabs,
for bringing voters to the poll, I believe not one
million could be brought. Of those electors how
many do we get for counties and boroughs ? There
are 570,000 voters for boroughs, and 750,000 for
counties ; therefore the number of county electors
is nearly half again as large as the number of
borough electors. The counties number 117 or 118.
Do we find the county electors generally in favour
of liberal measures or liberal men ? We have, from
some cause or other, the landed proprietors and the
great proprietors supreme. The great body of the
county electors have been reckoned as dumb dogs
that never bark—(a laugh)—and, in fact, the county
representation is almost like a dead body tied to the
living body of the borough representation, and is
almost of no avail in promoting those great liberal
measures upon which the prosperity of the country
depends. (Cheers.) Why-, you know perfectly well
that the great proprietors do not consider or consult
the farmers as to the candidates who should be
brought forward. The tenant farmers of the 118
counties are never consulted about the candidates
for those counties, for whom they are expected in all
humility to vote. (Laughter.) In your county I
understand a contest of no small importance is im-
pending. (Great cheering.) Men of the calmest
political temperament and of earnest feelings and
principles have been brought forward, and gentle-
men connected, most eminently connected, with
the industry of this town. As you have no contest
here, and 'Ave not the terrible labour of fighting a
borough election, you will have more leisure, and,
I hope, you will not have less enthusiasm—(cheers)
—to give your assistance to wrest this time one
seat, at least, from the party who have heretofore
sent two men who always said " No" when Mr.
Scholefield and I said " Aye." (Laughter and
cheers.) Well, it may be said that the large
boroughs have members, and large and free con-
stituencies. But the number of members which the
large boroughs have in proportion to their popula-
tion and wealth is far fewer than it ought to be, and
therefore their power in the House of Commons is
less important, and weighs less in a division than it
ought to do. Well, the general result we come to is
this, that the great body of the people, the five mil-
lions of men who work for their living, and who are
entrusted with the education and training of their
families—who are always recorded in the census, and
whose consumption and payment of expenses Mr.
Gladstone always estimates in the amount of the re-
venue—these. five millions are totally, absolutely,
and purposely excluded from any share in the Go-
vernment of the country. When the question of
Reform was last debated in the House of Commons
the opponents of Reform said, " What are your
grievances ? You have a right to be well governed.
You are well governed. What would you do with
Reform if you had it ?" Well, we are not bound to
tell them what we would do with it. I trust to the
virtue and knowledge of my countrymen to make a
judicious use of whatever power is given into their
hands. Is it not enough for them to say that we live
under a representative constitution, and that there
are five millions who are shut out from the represen-
tation ? That is a sufficient grievance, and is it not
an answer to their question ? But suppose we go
back to 1832 ; for these men only repeat what was
said in 1832. If the men of that day asked, what you
would do with Reform when you got it—and if the
Reformers of 1832, some of the men who met in your
powerful assemblies in Birmingham, said, " This is
what we will do when we get Reform. We will set
free almost immediately 800,000 negro slaves in the
colonies of the kingdom"—this would have alarmed
them extremely, for they were all against freeing the
negroes, as they are against freeing their country-
men. If the reformers said, "We intend to reform
all the corporations, and give every large town free
governments, elected by all the people of the town,"
they would have started back with amazement.
But if the reformers said, "In a few years we
will repeal the corn laws, and subject all the products of the
land of the United Kingdom to unrestricted competition
with the productions of every other land," they would have
started back with horror. And if they sail, • We will
sweep away the sugar monopoly and the-navigation
th 3 West India planters and the shipowners would think
the whole country was coming to irretrievable ruin. If they
said, " Wo will abolish the newspaper stamp, reduce the
tax on paper,establish penny newspapers- weekly and daily
all over the country, to discuss the character of our public
mon and the objects of public measures;" they would have
thought the pclitical world WAS coming to a positive end.
(Cheers and laughter.) Well, but every one of these things
that I have mentioned has boon done--except the last, with
regard to newspapers—within 15 years of the passing of
the Reform Bill ; and the very men who would have voted
against a Reform Bill if they apprehended tbat_these things
would have boon done, when they come before every con-
stituency they say, "We approve of these measures."
)'
long, now, do you suppose, if we
and toll them that as great
g(Livaeugthhetin (Laughter
aand
list e h
aboutr cheers.)
as
and good measures will be carried when the people are lot
in to political power— do you think that the lords and the
ee
territorial magnates of the country would bo more ready to
remove the barriers of exclusion? Do you think they would
bo more willing to pass a Reform Bill if I told them that
within three years after the just representation of the people
there would bo a sound, universal system of education

established for the whole country? (Loud cheers.) Sup--
pose I told them land would be made froe—that the law of
primogeniture would be abolished, and the practice of entails
done away with—would they be more in favour of the bill?
Suppose I told-them we are going to make Ireland a loyal
pare of the kingdom by the abolition of that most odious
institution, the Protestant State Establishment ? (Cheers.)
Suppose I were to toll them that; with proper economy, the
public expenditure of the country can be reduced to the

amount of £10,000,000 a year, and if we reduce taxes to that
amount we can adjust taxes then with greater equality and
greater justice—do you- think that they would be more
willing, after hearing these things, to consent to a measure
of reform ? No ; they would act as the anti-reformer of
1832 acted, and become more desperate in their opposition
in proportion as •they believed that the results of the bill
would reach the mass of the people. But still Reform is
ahead. They cannot conceal it. They cannot deny it. As
the poet said of death, " Its doom, though dread, yet dwelt
upon." But what do they do to avoid this Reform ? They
try to alarm the middle classes. They toll the tan-pounder
to be very much afraid of the nine-pounder. (Laughter.)
But the eight-pounder is still worse, and when you get to
the seven-pounder and six-pounder the consequences may
be fatal. (Great laughter.) In point of fact, the whole ob-
ject now is to set class against class. (Cheers.) They do this
by seeking to continue privilege and exclusion. lam one
of those who always sought to unite and blend all classes
of the people in one great mass, and to do It by the aboli-
tion of privilege and monopoly, and by the admitting my
countrymen to that which they are entitled to _common
citizenship in our common country. (Cheers.) You re-
collect the Reform Bill of. Lord Derby's, which I did some-
thing to knock on the head—(a laugh)—by describing it as
a mode of giving what they call fancy franchises. lam
sorry to see that so sensible and judicious a man as Lord
Stanley still adheres to those fancy franchises. The Re-
form Bill of Lord Derby .was the bill of Mr. Disraeli and
Lord Stanley. They were the two men in the Cabinet
who insisted upon those peouliar votes which proved fatal
to the bill. Lord Stanley undertook to say the other day
thkt the bill would admit to the borough franchise some-
thing like a quarter of a million of men. There are no
statistics to prove any such result, and, from all I know,
there is not the least ground for the supposition. He
thought the savings bank franchise very good, and that
every man who had £5O in the savings bank should have
a vote. Well, if a man is not married, and there are not
what some people call "olive branches"—(a laugh)—and
so they are—(cheers)—he may with a certain income de-
posit £5O in the savings bank, and have a right to vote as
long as ho keeps it there ; but if a man has six or seven, or
eight or nine, or ten or eleven or twelve—for in some
cases there seems to be no limits of those olive branches—

I want to know why ho who requires every sixpence of his
income to support his family can be expected to deposit
£5O in the savings bank, or be deprived of his vote ? One
man may think it wise to spend more money in the educa-
tion of his children than another, and he may not be able
to deposit it. One man may have an agedlather or mother
for whom his whole sympathy is exerted, and they may
have to depend for their comfort upon his labour and filial
care, and therefore ho may not be able to deposit £5O, and
secure his vote. Or he may deposit the £5O, and the care
or sickness of his family or some other trouble may come
upon him to require him to.draw it out ; and then he be-
comes disfranchised. What can be more monstrous than

a franchise of such a precarious character? What can be

more absurd, or tend more to demoralisation, than that a
man who deposits £5,000 in sums of £5O may add 100 to a

constituency ? That is a monstrous extension of the fran-

chise which is founded upon a foolish and vain model such
as this. But they have got a new term altogether. They

have given the thing a new name, and they think you will
like it the better. It is what they call " a lateral extension
of the franchise"—(laughter)—that is, an extension side-
ways, and not the least downwards. Now bear in mind
that the class who would be included in the lateral exten-
sion of the franchise is the class who are the best able to
qualify themselves at present, and who do not make any
complaint. Those who do complain are the great mass of
the working people, who were by the Reform Bill of 1832
purposely excluded. If in this borough and other boroughs
of the kingdom there were none but the middle class, they
would have no ground of complaint for exclusion from the
franchise. They would have a ground of complaint as to
the mode of distribution of members, but not of exclusion
from the franchise, for so many are enrolled that it may be
said they are adequately represented. But as to the
working classes, there are fewer represented now than
forty years ago, arid this is the class absolutely shut out.
The complaint and the danger is this, that in the whole
nation there aro twenty millions of persons—men, women,
and children—who have no direct representation in the
House of Commons of the country, which is the great foun-
dation of government as a representative system and repre-
sentative principle. Well, what is the answer made to
this claim ? It is this : The Prime Minister offers it con-
temptuous silence. He has not referred to it in the long
and carefully written address which he has not only ad-
dressed to the electors of Tiverton, but the electors of the
United Kingdom. But what says Lord Derby, speaking
by the mouth of his prophet Disraeli? (Laughter.) Why,
he says "lateral extension." Ho says to the great body of
working men—the five millions—" It is true you are shut
out, the Reform Bill is not satisfactory, the representation
must be mended, your complaint is just, and we admit
everybody else." Now Mr. Disraeli is the man who does
what may be called the conjuring for his party. (Laughter.)
He is what among a tribe of Indians would be called the
" mystery man ;" he invents phrases for them, and one of
his latest and newest is "lateral extension of the fran-
chise." Well, Mr. Disraeli is a man of brains, of genius, of
great capacity for action, of wonderful tenacity of purpose,
and of rare courage. He would be a statesman if his powers
of mind were directed by an ennobling principle or idea ;
but, unhappily, he prefers the temporary and worthless
distinction as head of a decaying party fighting for impos-
sible ends to the priceless memories of services rendered to
his country ar d freedom, and upon which only in our age
can an enduring name be built up. (Great cheering.)
What is meant by lateral extension ? It means this, that
all who are below .£lO householders shall not be admitted.
The present law admits all above it, and, therefore, to the
class already included it would only add a few men, incon-
siderable in the whole number, as lodgers, or the brothers
or sons of housekeepers who are already on the register.
Therefore it is quite clear that the lateral extension of the
franchise is a miserable pretence and delusion, and an insult
of a most glaring kind to the great body of the people. (Loud
cheers.) But they have another word. They say they are
for a liberal extension of the franchise, but not for the " de-
gradation of the suffrage." lam not sure whether Mr. Dis-
raeli has used the word "degradation," but it has been used
by his followers, and by the Quarterly Review. I ask you what
is meant by degradation of the suffrage ? You are the
working men of England, who have built our towns and
cities, who have furnished our houses, who fill our ware-
houses with the products of every clime, who build our
ships, steam-engines, and machinery, who have filled the
land with industry and wealth, and without whom there
would be no English nation. They tell you—men high in
the ranks of the Tory party tell you—that to extend the
franchise even from a £lO renter to a £6 renter would be
a degradation of the suffrage. I hope the country will
never forget the party who offer this insult to the great
mass of the people, and contemptuously deny them any
share of political power. But the fancy franchises have
failed, and lateral extension will also fail. We, who ad-
vocate honest opinions, and clearly understood and de-
finite measures, shall succeed. We stand in this matter

upon the practice of the ancient times ; we stand upon
sound precedents ; we stand upon reasons which no man
can contradict. Why, if it would not delay you too long,
I could give you proofs 200 years 'old that the franchise
was then held to be a common right, and, where there was
no specific restriction or law to the contrary, that the suf-
frage was vested in the whole people—inhabitants and
householders of towns. But look to the Reform Bill—
the greatest measure which was passed by Parliament
during the'last hundred years—and you will find the test
of the franchise which it gives is rental ; and rental is the
condition and test of the qualities of the people. I will
undertake to say that if you depart from the principle of
universal manhood suffrage, there is no test equal to the
rental of houses, whatever may be the class or sort of
people you may wish to reach. If you go to the part of
the town where I came from this morning, you will
find some good houses. If you go to another part of
the town you will see some poor houses, and there are
fewer in Birmingham than in any town of its size. You
will find wherever you go, by the house—its size, appear-
ance, the mode in which it is kept, the expenditure for
goods, for clothes, books, for education—of what class the
owner is, and whether he has what is called a stake in the
country. And just as you lower the franchise in amount
of rent from £lO to .£9, £B, £7, or £6, you include as
many of the working classes as you want to include ;
because those who live in the poorest houses are the poor-
est people ; they have the poorest food, the fewest books,
they giro their children the smallest education, and they
have the fewest comforts ; and, therefore, there never was
a test so complete as the test of the houses in which the
people live. If anybody objects to it you rely upon it that
ho wishes-to preserve the monopoly of a class. They ob-
ject because they fear the number to be admitted would be
too great to bo bribed or coerced. They do not object to
the freemen in the old boroughs, because they think they
cari be got by corrupt means; and they do not object to
the £5O tenant farmer, although his profit is not more than
20s. or 30s. a week, I ask them, whence comes the free-
dom that we now enjoy ? It does not come from the mo-
narch, nor from the House of Peers. It comes from the
House of Commons. From what side of the House of Com-
mons doies it come ? It does not come from the Tory side:
it comes from the side on which my hon. friend and my-
self are, by your favour, permitted to sit ; and if you ask
me from what section of the Liberal side it comes, I say it
comes from that section which sits below the gangway,
rather than from that which sits close to the Ministers of '
_ _ _

the day. Reform was gained by the action of the great
towns of the kingdom. I speak this to the middle classes,
to have confidence in their fellow citizens the working
classes. You may rely upon it that when we admit another
million of them to exercise the franchise, you yourselves
will hare greater power, and you will do for freedom in
future as great things as have been done in the past.
(Cheers.) To the working men ono word only before I sit
down. Do not in the least despair of your cause ; it is not
dead, and I maintain is net sleeping, for in every constitu-
ency and on every platform friend and opponent alike aro
discussing it during this groat week. For my-
, self, I never at any period—during the last fif-
teen years, certainly—l never looked with more hopeful
eye or encouraged heart upon the prospects of this groat
question. I believe the time is coming, nay, that we are
on the very threshold of it, when a great number of those
excluded shall bo admitted to the franchise, and when we
shall feel more than ever that we are one nation and one
people. (Cheers.) Many of you, I doubt not, have stood—
as I have often stood—upon the seashore in an hour of
quiet and calm ; no tempest drives the waves, and the
wind appears as if it wore a whisper ; aad yet you see the
tide coming in, urged as it were by some latent mysterious
power ; you see the loiterers upon the beach driven from
point to point by the advancing waves; and by-and-bye,
and finally, the whole vast basin of the ocean seems filled
to the very brim. (Loud cheers.) Well, take your cause.
There is no violence, not a menace of force, but all feel the
opinion that the tide is coining on ; we feel, too, that those
who aro our opponents, ignorant as some of them may be,
insolent as others of them may be, are gradually driven
back ; and by-and-bye the banners will be thrown down,
privilege and monopoly will be swept away, the people will
be enfranchised, the measure of their freedom will be full.

(Immense cheering.) You have honoured me this morning
by confiding to me in part the maintenance of this groat
cause. I cannot enough tell you how I estimate the honour
you have conferred upon me. I shall probably have to de-
fend the cause on many occasions with a feebleness which
I shall regret as much as you. I may even fall from the
ranks before it is won ; but of one thing you may res
assured that I never shall betray it. (Great cheering.)
Some questions were then put to the hon. members, and
answered. To that put by Mr. Sebastian Evans, Mr. Bright
stated that ho had for some time back declined to have any
altercation with the Prime Minister, who was an octoge-
narian. He was not desirous of entering the lists with a
man 80 years of age. He wished him many years of leisure
in the retirement which was now so suited to him.
(Laughter.)

After a vote of thanks to the Mayor, the proceedings
were brought to a close.

A FORTUNATE LOTTERY SPEC (MATO R.—M. Gigre,
the winner of the 500,000 fr. prize of the Mexican
Loan, loft his house with the intention of subscribing at the
Comptoir d'Escompte. On arriving at the office ho found it
so crowded that he leisurely returned by the Rue Vivienne
to the Boulevards, and happening to pass M. Monteaux's
well-known exchange office, recollected that he could pur-
chase the scrip there, and walked in, but found that a well-
known physician had followed him, and, being better known
than himself, insisted on being attended to first. M. Gigre,
amazed at this second delay, asserted that he had come into
the office before the doctor, but in vain. While he remon-
strated the clerk handed the ill-mannered son of 2Esculapius
ten shares. M. Gigre had nothing for it but to accept the
two next, which he purchased in no very amiable mood.
Thanks, however, to the doctor's rudeness, M. Gigre is
revelling at this moment in the luxury of clear £l,OOO a-
year.

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with the child's growth.