The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-12 00:00:00

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the Church then laid claim to them, and wished to
hold them exclusively for those who professed them-
selves her members, and in order to further their
object they made it incumbent upon all to subscribe
to articles to which no conscientious Dissenter could
consent, and therefore an insuperable barrier was
raised against his admission to participate in the ad-
vantages of these national institutions. I have in
every possible way, by my voice and my vote, en-
deavoured to remove these obstacles; and I opposed
on one occasion any further grant of public money to
pay the professors of Oxford and Cambridge until
the grievances complained of by the Dissenters at
their exclusion from those Universities were redre sed.
e
--(Hear, hear.) I have opposed every vote of. s
public
money to the Church, which, in the aggregate,
amounts to a considerable sum, and bears, all sorts of
names, in order that their true purpose, may not be
easily discovered. I have opposed those grants from
year to year, and have always 7aivided the House
whenever I could get any one tr
e second my motions.
Sometimes I could not get a e'econder, and at no time
did I ever get more than 'thirty to divide with me,
and lihave:clone those things as a conscientious Church-
man. I believe that `ate great principle on which the
doctrines of that Church are founded is to "Do unto
others as you would be done by," and hence consider
that its interests would be in a higher degree promoted
by keeping her fingers out of other people's pockets.--
(Loud
(Loud laughter.) I certainly think that her
present position is very much: 'endangered by
the course she is pursuing.! Now, gentlemen, thellast
-vote I gave upon this subject was against a grant of
üblic money to maintain and pay a body, called the
Ecclesiastical Commission, whose functions are en-
tirely connected with the Church. They had to deal
with large sums of money belonging to the Church,
and I say that out of those ample means these Com-
missioners ought to be paid.—(Hear, hear.) I there-
fare objected to that vote, as I have done to scores of
others. We have recently been enabled to draw out
some; of the proceedings and accounts of the body,
and from them we have found that they are as
complete jobbers as are to be found in any other
public department. They have taken out of these
funds (which I say should he devoted to the
purposes for which church-rates are levied,
and the people relieved from such an exac-
tion), 143,0001. in the course of the last few
years for the erection of seven bishops' palaces—(Cries
of " Shame")---143,000/. fur erecting and beautifying
seven bishops' palaces ! I think one has been already
finished, at a cost of 54,0001.; and whilst they are
carrying on this reckless expenditure, there are a
large number of clergymen—members of the Church
—educated men—performing duties day by day, and
week by week, many of whom receive a miserable
stipend of 35., and some as little as is. ld. a day.—
(Cries of " Shame.") That is a fact; I don't mention
on hearsay, 1 have obtained the fact from their own
published accounts. Well, then, I think I have given
my friends the Dissenters, for whom I have great
respect, cause to be grateful to me.—(Hear, hear.)
At the last election, many of them having recon-
sidered the course they had just taken before the
election came forward to support me; but they came
too late—unhappily the poison had been disseminated,
and those who came with their antidote on the, last
day were too late to be of avail. I think on an occa-
sion of this sort it is always better for a person
standing in the situation I do at the present moment
to state openly all that he has got upon his mind. I
have done so, and I know that those very gentlemen
who were so instrumental in causing me to be de-
feated are at this moment, perhaps, as ardent -and
sincere friends of mine as I can boast of anywhere,
and I am proud of their friendship and goodwill.
There is another body of old friends of mine of whom
I see many here—l mean the freemen. You all
know that some hundreds who have always supported
me on former occasions went against me at the
last election, and nine out of ten of them
were freemen.—(Cries of " Shame upon them.")
Under these circumstances, I think I have a right to
remind the freemen of what I have done for them ;
and, having done so, I will leave it to their reflection
to consider whether they have acted rightly in the
course they have taken against me. During my first
session in Parliament a very important Bill was in-
troduced—namely, the Municipal Corporation Re-
form Act, which abolished your old corrupt corpora-
tions as well as the corporations of all cities of a
similar stamp.—(Hear, hear.) That was a great
good, and we all thought so, and supported it ; but
there was a clause in that Bill which proposed to
abolish for ever the taking up of a freedom by any
person in this realm.—(Cries of " That is true.")
Freemen were to be entirely swept away from the
date of the passing of the Bill. I remember the late
Sir William Follett the most distinguished
lawyer of his day—stating in the House of Commons,
on the faith of his character as a lawyer, that that
clause would completely disfranchise the existimt
freemen, and he proposed that nothing contained in
the Act should, in any way, interfere with any right
or privilege possessed by the existing freemen. The
matter came to a division ; I supported him to in:,
utmost, but it was lost by a majority of 43. The
next clause took away all your property ; it propose]
to take away your much cherished Lammas lands ;
and I was the very first men in the House of Com•
mons to move that both these obnoxious clauses should
be expunged from the Bill. Numerous diseu,!;ions
took place on the question, and I was never
absent. On every one of these occasions I was
present, and supp( rted the abrogation of the clauses
both with my voice and my vote.—(hear, hear.)
I recollect on one occasion that the freemen were
denounced from every part of the House, every
epithet which the English language could cor.ver
was hurled against them ; they were described
perpetrators of corruption and infamy of every kind ;
and the Attornty•General of the day stated, in his
place, that he considered the existence of freemen a
curse to the country. I mede one or two unsuccess-
ful attempts to address the House, but I did not
succeed in catching the Speaker's eye for some time.
Many spoke on that occasion, and the lion. Member
who spoke before me, stated that unless the freemen
were abolished the great principle intended to be
carried out by the Reform Bill could not be cc
complished.—(Hear, hear.) By-and-bye, when I
had an opportunity of addressing the House,
I replied to the charges so generally levelled against
the freemen. I said, " I believed I represented the
largest constituency of freemen, compared with the
population and freemen of other towns, in England,
and that I had been returned by them to that
House without a man asking or receiving from me, in
any way, as much as the value of sixpence, in the
shape of bribe or drink, or, in fact, in any shape what
ever."—(Loud cheers.) I sald, looking round me,
"I call upon the calumniators of the freemen—l call
upon any one to say that he has been returned with
equal purity." Not one
,replied to my challenge.
But on the next occasion the Bill came before the
House the Attorney-General, who had said that free-
men were a curse, and - must be destroyed,
got up and said that the freemen of :such
a city as Coventry were an exception to the
general censure, as the Member who represented. the
city had borne his testimony to their integrity, and
laded that the conduct of the freemen of Coventry
was not sufficient to continue the freedom to those
town% not one of whose Members had stood up to
defend
thern.—(Cheers.) Well, the control of your
property was
fought for th to be entirely taken away from you. We
time,
and
thee expulsion of that clause for a long
the previous clause
of the day said, " Well, as
(no freemen er destroys freemen root and branch,"
that existed ere, eto be subsequently created, and those
dotno,tbe deprived of all the rights they
enjoyed) w.
a thmind, under those circum.
stances, leaving
Sir Wm. Follett told a freemen their property."
meto ,pArivately, that if the clause
were passed even as it
be stood, that in his opinion all the
old freemen would
plieed, and " I know,"
have told you that he
he said, "well enough (anir,
was the best lawyer ofhis day) that the judges will
decide against their voting for Members of Parlia-
ment or for exercising any other i
nioant functions."
the first
b% The Bill went up to the House of Lord
clause annihilating the coming freemens
;with u
never-
theless, by the combined exertions myself
others, this outrageous principle of the Bill
and
Then with as ex-
punged.—(Hear,
hear.) respect to
the stamp duty of I/. upon young men taking up
their freedom. I saw honest young men who had
served their masters faithfully for seven years, and
who, perhaps, had no means of accumulating a little
fund to provide implements necessary for the trades,
in order to start as independent tradesmen, subject
to a tax of 11. before they could become freemen.
I brought in a Bill to abolish that stamp duty ;
I was opposed by the present Prime Minister, and
he defeated me twice, and then I told her Majesty's
Government that so long as I had a seat in that
House I should, if I were allowed, to the last day
of my existence, never
cease to bring in a similar
opportunity
Acting upon this principle defeat,l
that presented itself.
t after my second
brought it in agai the close of the same session,
making a little difference
Russell then said, in eanee in its form. Lord John
everything, " The uvoenry:sslite mannereas he does
Members for Coventry has
really stuck to this measure so well that, I think, we
way."—(Lud
must now let him have
cheers.) Of course, I thanked hisewrisordship, and we
carried the Bill. And what was
mantake ought to
the freemen at that time ? oothe condition of
know; and e.l, think every young s many
of you
know that 'Weis freedom
many instances at the expense of one of the political
parties in the city, 9n condition that they should give
their votes to that party as a consideration for the
purchase money ; i.e., they were forced to vote against
their convictions—not from their own feelings, but
they wore forced to do so from the position in which
they stood, and perhaps it was no degradation, be-
cause it was done by all who had procured their votes
by such means. Seeing their deplorable condition,
I stood by them and emancipated them,--(Great