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

Well, gentlemen, if 3irdie
feelings, and probably your
because taking a retrovect
be recalled, is not always an
task; but, however, there are
with the last election upon
upon to make a few obsery
many of whom I see about me, no doubt recolleift\..
position in which I stood when I first came down to
Coventry in 1834. I then stated, in a speech which
I delivered in Cross Cheeping, my opinions upon all
the great leading and important questions of that day
(I am sorry to say that some of them are public
questions) at the present hour) ; I told you if you
elected me as your representative, that I should use
my utmost = endeavors to carry out the principles
which I-then proclaimed. I published my votes at
the end of each session, and I invariably came to meet
you for the purpose of rendering you an account of
my stewardship ; and upon every one of them
occasions, without, an exception, end without a
single dissenting voice, you not only expressed
your approbation of my past conduct in strong
language, but confidence in my future labour.,
Well, having at the former election returned
me by a' majority of 580, you rejected me at
the last election, without one single individual
in the • midst of all the electioneering excitement
that prevailed (and there were many unfounded
charges- brought against me, by which, as i 2
too often the case at elections, many were misled), npt
one of my bitterest foes—not one of those.who were
formerly my friends, nor those who were lukewarm
and indifferent—not one, I repeat, stood up and said,
" You have violated the pledges which you gave, and
the principles and opinions which you professed." No
such charge was made against me, and, therefore,
the result of the last election was indeed a matter of
some astonishment to me, because I was utterly unable
to divine how I could have lost so many votes. My
friends heard of the result of the election with equal
astonishment ; 'it was a matter of great sur-
prise to many out of Coventry; and I re-
ceived many communications from persons who
knew me asking how any rejection could have hap-
pened. Well, no intimation having been given that
I had not acted up to my principles, I had no right—
, honest and consistent reformer as I had ever been,
and have the credit of being, I believe, in the country—
I certainly confess I had no expectation of seeing so
many of my former supporters going from thorough
Reform principles to direct Toryism—(Heer, hear)
—to that very Toryism whose very principle is to
adhere to existing abuses, and to take as much money
as they can get out of the pockets of the people .
That is what I have found the principles of Toryism
to be in the House of Commons during the whole
period I :had a seat in it.—(Hear.) Well, then, we
must look to other causes for an explanation of the
reasons which led to my rejection. Now, the first
party that deserted me was a very influential section
of the Dissenters, amongst whom there was some of
my most ardent friends, and some of the most active
members of my former committee.---(Hear, hear.)
They, to a very large number, withdrew
their confidence from me, because I had voted for
giving education to the millions of the destitute chil-
dren of the poorer classes who are totally without
any education whatever—(" Shame, shame")—and
whose friend I had always professed myself to be, and
I hope I shall be their friend to the last hour I
breathe.—(Cheers.) Now, gentlemen, if you will
refer to the speeches I have made, and the votes I
have given, you will find that I have never lost any
opportunity of promoting the principles which I pro-
claimed on my first introduction to you.—(Hear.)
Why, I recollect making a speech in 1836 in which,
if you take the trouble to refer to it, you will find
that I urged the Government to do a great deal more
than they proposed to do at that time. I have been
urgingthem to do more to promote the education of the
people ever since ; for we have it in evidence that many
millions of the children of the poorer classes are
utterly uninformed, because their parents have not
the means of giving them that instruction which is
requisite to make them good citizens, to fear their
Maker, and ,to do their duty to their fellow-men.—
(Cheers.) But I never found this objection made to
taking your money—the poor rnan's money—to pay
for the education of the rich. They make no diffi-
culty about taking his money for the education of
those classes, for votes are annually made to those
rich Universities, Oxford and Cambridge, for the
purpose of paying the professors.—(Hear, hear.) The
great colleges and University of Scotland are almost
entirely maintained out of the public money, and
three great colleges have lately been established
in Ireland, at a cost, I believe, of 100,0001.;
and an annual grant of 50,0001. is to be taken from
the public money to maintain them.—(Hear, hear.)
Even the London University, where Dissenters
send their sons to receive honorary degrees for scho-
lastic acquirements, is maintained out of the public
money; and that principle, therefore, appears to
me to be a strange one, which, whilst •it
objects to the children of the poor being
educated out of the funds of the State, allows
these funds to be appropriated without scruple
to the education of the children of the rich.—(Hear,
hear.) I will do those who voted against eme the
credit of saying, that they no doubt acted according
to their honest belief, and I will say, further, that I
do not approve of the form of education which is pro-
posed to be given under the system recently adopted.
I objected to it, because it did not go far enough; I
wanted it to be entirely free from any sectarian bias.
—(Hear)—but I knew the difficulty in which the
Government was placed between conflicting interests
and opinions, and believing that they intended,
honestly, to give the people a good system of educa-
tion, I gave them my earnest support, although at the
same time I am perfectly ready to admit that no
system can ever be carried out without it has the
sanction of every class of the community; and I am
well persuaded that the time is not far distant when
we shall have a scheme of education which will be
satisfactory to • all classes. The question on which I
was called upon to vote was this—Shall we
put an end to all grants of the public
money for the education of the people, or shall we
simply continue to vote the money, which we have
done during.the last twelve years, and with the im-
pressed conviction on our minds that a system of edu-
cation more acceptable to the country would be
adopted at a more distant period ? Well, the Dis-
senters who deserted me did not take that view of the
question ; they required that the scheme which I
confidently look forward to see in the future esta-
blished at once. I can assert that in every speech
delivered by me ineCoventry I urged education above
all things as the greatest good that could be conferred _
upon the common people. I am most anxious for
them to obtain their political rights, but at the same
time I know they never will obtain them until they are
an educated people, and can present that moral force
which will be irresistible.. My honest opinion is,
that if they had those political rights—(l see my old.
friend the Chartist is present)—the present state of
education would render them unable to retine
—not that Coventry and all greaitnhtt
towns
siatas of such
unen-
lightened, because I con.sidetrhethe
the inhabitants
franchise with
towns capable of exercising the
west, east, an
great.eul
tu abilityral
counties,
advantageti
,tots,nosbeuitnlthseay, go into the
d
and you will find a mass of ignorance—igno-
rance rsalionuctihe'so great, that if you inquire you will find that,
perhaps, not one in a hundred can tell you the form
of Government under which they live, or the
name of the Sovereign that reigns over
them. (Hear, hear.) How, then, I ask
can these people be expecteed to exercise the franchise
wisely ?—(Bear, hear.) Education, therefore, would
confer great good on the people. It should never be
forgotten that our beneficent Creator has not endowed
the, great aristocracy with a superior order of in-
tellect ; superior intellect is not confined to one class,
for the Creator, in his great beneficence, has dis-
pensed his majestic gifts to all with an unsparing
haild. Give the humblest British artizan but educa-
tion and he may rise to the highest pinnacle of the
state, and confer, by his use of intelligence, the
greatest benefits on his species. The nation
at large has therefore an interest in the
education of all classes, and in return the
nation has a right to claim the advantage of all the
talent displayed in maturity by its members.
now, gentlemen, I will ventureto say this, that,durwg
the period I served you in Parliament there Was riot
one Member in any of the Parliaments to which
e you
returned me who adhered more stedfiistly to
. th
in-
terests of the Dissenters than I did ; there was not
a grievance of which they complained which I
best to obtain them redress.--(fiver, not stand up in the House and denounce, and doI nriey.
11•
_l'4 triedrelieving in everyDis-
senters
the chuerces;
rates
removed—first, to
m e
m be
r frontbw often I haveil votteed
possible way to get_ h
izkpreetthteypurEo,airielrytyenoofutghhe
there
sa:
take
Church,the them Owtrhai
which
tgheet
in the new arrangements with regard to the bishops
I'dthtoi
and deans and chapters, yield an equivalent for their
abolition. We last that, although we tried to carry
our proposition in (wo successive sessions. I next
supported the proposition that Churchmen alone
should pay the rates, and if they could not raise suf-
ficient, that they should maintain their churches in
the same 'way as the Dissenters, who not only main-
tain chapels, but their ministers also.—(Hear, hear.)
We also failed in that. And then we tried the total
abolition, 'without any condition at all, with no
better success. Then I voted for, and spoke in favour
ef, relieving the Dissenters from that ban which
excluded them from tha Universities. Those Univer-
sities belonged to the people —they belonged too the na-
tion, and were therefore the property of the Diu ;senters,
or of any other class, as much as they were I lie pro-
perty of the Church.—(Hear, hear.) They were
not the property of the Church originally, for they
were established and endowed by their IZ oman
Catholic ancestors. - At the Reformation the Iti oman
Catholics were dispossessed of the vast es4atres and
revenues belonging, to the universities and colleges;