The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-14 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

6rning, 11h. 35m.—Mternoon,
THIS DAY.-M 11h. 59m.
r.r J-NIORRO rni ng, h. m.--Afternoon, 12h. 30m.

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LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 14, 1865.

Mr. BRIGHT is determined not to allow any oppor-
tunities to be lost, and he is again displaying that
activity which he so conspicuously manifested at
the period of the DERBY Government bringing in a
Reform Bill. It remains for the future to show us
whether he will continue his eagerness in the ses-
sion, or whether, as happened before, he will relax
from his efforts, and afford another notable example
of vox et pretcrea nihil. He will be doing his friends
the Ministers
a loor service if, before he is aware
of their intentions, he advocates the necessity of
reform in a sweeping degree,
and they are proved
to entertain more moderate views on the subject.
One thing must strike the attentive observer as
rather inconsistent in the tone of Mr. n T-3
itwit:es
speeches, and that is the indignation into which he
has worked himself up on the question of Reform.
If he considers the matter of such vital importance,
why, in the name of common sense, did he not
broach the theme before ? He has been silent on
the topic during some years, and he now rushes''
forward to declaim in a breathless fashion about the
wrongs and injuries that the nation has sus-
tained in consequence of the measure being so
long held in abeyance. If the present Government
succeed in passing a Reform Bill based on a corapre,

hensive plan and calculated to remedy existing
deficiencies, and-consider the claims of the various
classes in the country, it will be a fortunate blessing;.

but, at the same time, let us bear in mind that they
would not palm it off upon us as a work of super-
erogation. Instead of boasting of their achieve-

ments, they should blush for the tardiness

they have displayed in putting these de-

signs into execution. Instead of prefacing
all these declarations on the subject with the
emphatic announcement that great gratitude is due
to them for their intentions, it should be borne in
mind that they are to blame for the shuffling cha-
racter of the policy that has ruled on the subject,
Reform is not a thing to be taken up and set down
whenever it suits the purpose of party and answers
the ends of faction.
There has been too much of all this kind of thing
going on for a long time past, and a more memor-
able instance of want of genuineness was
never displayed than in 1859, when Earl
RUSSELL and Mr. BRIGHT banded together
to destroy the attempts made by the Con-
servatives to settle the question. Mr. BRIGHT is
very indignant with Mr. DISRAELI for having said
that " England does not love coalitions ;" but, in.
truth, the country has had little cause to respect or
admire the course pursued by the coalition formed
in Willes's Rooms at the celebrated meeting that
was held there. We must protest against the
whole style and tenour of Mr. BRIGHT'S orations.
He is doing his utmost to set class against class, and
section against section. This is the worst feature
of his political career, and militates against the
success which he might otherwise have achieved,
and mars the effect of his great talents and powerful
eloquence.

There is no chance of Mr. BRIGHT'S impressing
the generation in which he lives, or of his really
being influential in carrying any great measure.
He will never be able to bewilder the intelligent
classes and confuse the thinking minds of the com-
munity by his violent and denunciatory epistles ;
but as he certainly exercises a dangerous power as
a demagogue over the ignorant and uneducated, it
is as well to notice a few of his glaring consistencies,
and his most outrageous comments. Mr. BRIGHT had
no college education. Perhaps he is sharp enough
to detect the deficiencies such a loss has occasioned
in his public career, for he loses no possible chance
of depreciating and running down all that apper-
tains to our time-honoured universities. Such a
course would be beneath contempt in a less conspicu-
ous person, but in a man of his rank it is necessary
to point out his want of perception. Mr. BRIGHT
has read a good deal of history, but it has done him
no good. He has ransacked its pages to find when
Kings have erred, and when nobles have gone
astray. He forgets that these individuals have
lived in a strong light, and that their faults, as well
as their virtues, have been prominently put forward.
No doubt, if the deeds of Mr. BRIGHT'S own class
in society for the last few hundred years were
snatched from the shadows of time, we might find
much to denounce and deplore in their doings. Mr.
BRIGHT talks so much himself that he has no
patience with any one else who presumes to open
his mouth without his leave. If he has not received
a polished education, we might have supposed that
the great Birmingham orator knew something of
manners ; and it is really quite out of character
for a member of Parliament nowadays to talk after
this fashion : "These men, your PAKINGTONS and
ADDERLEYS," &c. Unfortunately for these.gentlemen,
so unscrupulously assailed, they cannot return the
compliment, for the idea of two " BRIGHTS" in one
generation would be, indeed, a preposterous thing.
The Tories, not content with their sins of old in
creating all the revolutions of Europe, have now, we
learn, passed across the Atlantic, and occasioned the
great war in the American Republic. There is
one question to ask Mr. BRIGHT, and that is, how
did the Conservative slaveholders spring up in his
paradise ? According to his theory, earth would
be an Eden still if it were not infested with innu-
merable serpents, who will intrude, in the shape of
Tories, or the still more dangerous form of Conser-
vatives. Mr. BRIGHT wasted a great deal of the
time of his audience in casting aspersions upon those
who have presumed to dilate upon his speeches at
various meetings and assemblies. He appears to
forget who threw down the gauntlet, and is en-
raged at its being taken up. It is right that it
should have been raised from the ground, where he
flung it in so contemptuous a style. We will not
say " we trust we have within the land five hun-

dred good as he," but we entertain the firm con-
viction that among all shades of political opinion,
and among all diversities of taste and character,
there is no :public man of our time who does not
entertain a more correct view of his responsibilities
than does the vehement and unscrupulous member
for Birmingham.
With respect to the conclusion of Mr. BRIGIIT'S
discourse, we must again protest against his bitter,
unmeaning, and savage attacks upon all who
occupy a high station in life. He contradicts him-
self, as is always the case with these pretentious
demagogues. In ono part of his speech we find
him reviling the great increase that has taken
place in the peerage, and in the next place denounc-
ing the upper ten thousand for having been born
rich and titled. Have not the additions to the
peerage been taken from the House of Commons
for the most part, and is not that almost entirely
recruited from the middle ranks of society. Mr.
BRIGHT goes on to talk as if the poor and over-
worked were treated with contempt by the rich and
powerful, but we must tell him that when the
great measure of lessening the hours of labour in
factories, which crushed the energies of women
and children as well as of men, was passed in
the house of Commons, it met with the
most strenuous opposition from the manufacturing
interest, and Mr. BRIGHT and all his friends and
supporters fought against it tooth and nail. He
now tells us that he hopes the " cry of the toil-
laden and the suffering which even now ascends to
Heaven
will reach further, and be heard on the
floor of Parliament ;" and we retort on him, that it
reached there some years ago, and he turned a deaf
ear to it, and induced his friends to do the same.
Again, when in the centre of our teeming industry
a solemn silence fell, and the great cotton trade
was paralysed, who came forward in the crisis?
Did the employers of the operatives give up of their
abundance to those who had heaped up the riches
they had garnered? Was it not the higher ranks
who exerted themselves ? We can assure Mr.
BRIGHT that it may be hard work to stand up be-
fore a public asssembly and rail for two hours at
all of birth, education, and refinement, but it is
harder to give twelve hours out of the day to the
management of committees, as was mentioned of
Mr. MACIA'RE the other day. Which has earned
more right to the gratitude of his countrymen,
ordained by the laws of GOD to labour, but like-
wise entitled to the support and sympathy of his
brother-men—the Earl of DERBY, who has devoted
so much time and trouble to the service of the dis-
tressed operatives, or Mr. BRIGHT, who gets upon a
platform and exhausts language itself in reviling the
aristocracy ?
According to his own showing in
' America, where the hateful name of duke or baronet
is never
forests, or
sumffiengrelde to awake the echoes of primeval
'with the roar of mighty cataracts,