The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-07 00:00:00

NEWSPAPER
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*ould have raised the present number of emotes..eetety-Ae:
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millions. What would have been the effect ? h .%AatilikPAr, '-;**
Russell's bill would have left four millions and a . alfeanre-ci S
presented—minewould have left four millions Unrepreeftted.—
If Lord J. Russell's bill would have left twenty-two millions
and a half of the population unrepresented, mine would
have left twenty millions unrepresented. How moderate,
then, was my project, and how unjust, how slanderods,
how false, and how malignant were the charges made
against me in connection with that bill. (Great cheering.)
There are here present many thousands who can answer,
not only for themselves but for their neighbours, and I
would ask them, and any person who may be disposed to
be critical, this question—are the people of this country, as
a whole, so ignorant, so brutal, so destructive, so dangerous,
that when I exclude 20 millions and Lord John Russell
excludes upwards of 22 millions, there is still danger to
every valuable institution of our country? What is the
monarchy worth ? What is the House of Commons worth ?
What is the Established Church worth ? (Nothing.)
After these institutions have existed in this country for so
many centuries, the population is so ignorant and destruc-
tive, and so untrustworthy, that when 20 millions arc put
aside and not entrusted with the franchise, there is still
danger on the admiseion of the small remainder of the
people. If any man opposes this, put this seal upon him,
'that he is against representation altogether ; that if he lived
in a country in which there were no Parliaments, he would
be against Parliaments; that if ho had lived before the
Reform Bill, he would have been against the Reform Bill ;
and that in discussing questions of reform, his opinion i 3
of no value for the settlement of such a question. I . ant
of opinion that there are many men of the Tory party in
the . House of Commons who will support Reform next
session, Not a few of them pledged themselves to a
£5 franchise before the last election. I must always
give credit to Mn Disraeli that, after all, he has been
a great teacher of the party with whom he is con-
nected. They used hint at first to wreak their vengeance
against Sir It. Peel, but since then ho has very successfully
used them. (Loud laughter.) lie rarely makes a speech
in which he does not say something much more palatable;
on our side of the house than on his own, and I am inclined
to think that those speeches from which I read the extracts
showed a good deal of foresight, and he was likely looking
forward to the Reform of 1860, when this question of the
session having been shelved—not put away as lumber, but
settled in such a way that it could not behrought forward
session after session—he felt that he would have a better
chance in his contention for office against the, Wliigs than
he has while this question remains in its present state. In
the House of Lords—even in that assembly where day-
light only breaks in, as it were, through chinks and cran-
nies—there must be men who know perfectly well that
after this question has been put into the mouth of the
Queen session after session, everybody admitting that it
is a question which must be settled —there are men in that
house who will counsel a:moderate course. I will not pledge
myself for anything they will do until it is done. But lam
not without hope that, as in past times, when the moment
arrives at which they are to say aye or no, and when the
" no" does not always appear to be maintainable or safe, it
is possible that they may say " aye," and that the bill will
pass. (Cheers.) Only look at the men in the Mouse of
Lords. What a magnificent position many of those men
occupy—a position not always fortunate for themselves, for
I do not think it always fortunate to be so privileged—a
position not for their countrymen; many of them have
great property, can boast an illustrious ancestry, and possess
vast influence all over the country.' Can they shut out
from their minds that whatever is great or good in England
comes from whatever we have enjoyed of personal and poli-
tical liberty ? Their position has not been made worse but •
better by all that has taken place, and, it maybe, that if the,
would accommodate themselves to the growth of intellig,enee
and show themselves in favour of some of the changes neces-
sary, they might maintain for a time to come, as long as they
have already occupied it, aposition equal to that which they
now hold among their fellow mon. (Hear.) If Englishmen
go, as they went 250 years ago, to America, or to Any
British colony, they take with them the British constitu-
tion and the right of voting. if he goes to Australia, if
he goes to Canada, if he goes to Van Diemen's Land—
wherever he emigrates under the Crown of England—in
whatsoever colony he becomes a resident, he is possessed of
a franchise which he cannot have in this country. Ndw I
want to ask you, is England to bo the only country in
which the natural and inalienable rights of Englishmen
according to the constitution shall be denied to them ?
(Cries of " .No, no.") Can that which is good for America,
for Canada, for Van Dieinen's Land, for the Cope, be an
evil for this country? (No.) I cannot understand what
men moan by this dread of admitting a largo number of
their countrymen within the franchise. There is nothing
in the history of the past to justify their fears, but there is
everything to encourage them in any forward step they
may make. If Parliament is good for anything, it is good
to preserve the peace, to manage national funds with
economy, to levy taxes fairly. Look at what wo have done
within the last twenty years. I was looking over some
figures the other day, and I discovered this astounding fact,
that we are paying now for military expenses alone
£10,000,000 a-year more than all your Government ex-
penses of every kind—military and naval—in 1838, exclu-
sive of the National Debt in both instances ; and although
we are doing this, what is the humiliating position in which
wo find ourselves ? We sometimes see amusing caricatures
of John Bull, which make men laugh. Suppose you to.w
a caricature of this kind: that John Bull lived in a parish
in which the rates were twice as heavy as in any other;
that the police force was such that there was not the side
of a house which was not watched by a polif4eman or a
sentinel, and yet such was his constant state of alarm that
this unfortunate John Bull was forced to sit night after
night at his window, with cocked pistol and loaded re-
volver, and could not get a wink of sleep. (Laughter.)
Such is the present condition of England. Great as is the
enormous cost of the navy now, in 20 years more it will be
double if you permit it. (Hear, heat.) Taxes are the means
by which Government provides for the expenditure of the
country, and so long as expenditure is made a justifica-
tion for taxes, depend upon it so long will there be an ex-
cuse for the continuation of taxes. (Hear, hear.) You have
a Minister. of War sitting in his room, and in comes an
alarmed admiral and an affrighted general, the talk is tell of
rifle cannon, of breech-loading small arms, and rifle corps,
and the Minister himself gets so heated by the refilled at-
mosphere in which ho is placed that he at length scarcely is
able to form any calm judgment on the state of the ques-
tion. (Hear, hear.) I do wish that Englishmen had a .
little more coolness, and that we were not so easily led
away by a red herring on a string before us. After spending
£26,000,000 last year, which was twice as much as the
Duke of Wellington and Sir It. Peel thought necessary in
1835, the moment Parliament 'rises three-fourths of the '
newspapers—who don't give you a single fact that can be
relied on—get up agitating statements, and then just before
Parlianient meets, when they know the whole thing will be
blown to atoms, they tell you that the reasons by which
they excited your fears were no reasons at all, but merely to
prove an abstract proposition, that although you had spent
twenty-six millions for others to defend you, you must de-
fend yourselves. One word more, and I have done. Twenty
years ago, the voice of the 25,000,000 of unrepresented
people in this country—the voice of 5,000,000 working men
was heard in angry mood. That is no longer heard because
the distress which pressed upon them has been removed.
But the working men have associations. They can get up ,
formidable strikes against capital. Sometimes it may be on
real, sometimes on fancied, grievances. I ask, why are not
these trade organisations made use of to obtain their pelf-
tical rights? I hope it may not be necessary to make use
of thorn, but if the question is not fairly settled in the com-
ing session, I do hope that the working people of this coun-
try—those vast bodies of artisans whose skill and whose
labour fill all our warehouses, all our shops, all our ships
—will take some steps to bring about what I may call a
convocation of working men, with a view to bring their
influence to bear on Parliament at an early period.
(Cheers.) I don't for a moment mean to use the lan-
guage of menace, for I think that Parliament
requires the language of menace less, probably,
than at any former time ; but I trust that in the session of
1860 the Government will bo honest and courageous, and
that the Parliament may be more sound than it has been
before. I have been assailed as being hostile to our politi
cal institutions, and especially to the aristocracy of the
country. I freely admit that I am hostile to institutions
which exclude five-sixths of my fellow •countrymen from
any share in the representation ; and I am hostile to that
supremacy of the aristocracy which is no part of the Con •
siitution of this country. All I want is that the population,
the property of the country
in the House of Commens.
tshheelitindtellhoigefnacirel,ythreepirnedseunsttarede
The aristocracy themselves have not always been very par-
ticular in the;." contests with a power above them. Two
ethundreded with an
n
English Monarch, and what did they no ?
tented
Our greatest of bards, Sbakespeare, has put into the mouth
of au unfortunate Prince this sentiment,—
" Not all the waves in the rough, rude sea,
Can wash the balm from an anointed King."
Yet the aristocracy of this country, being discontented with
a'king, expelled hint from his throne, and by a force invited
from abroad expelled him from his country. I am making
no charge against them for this,. but I say that we are not
proposing to treat them in a manner se harsh: (Hear.) We
have no objection to their occupying that place in the Con-
stitution which the Constitution has awarded them—we
touch them not, we only ask that the nation shall choose its
representatives to sit in Parliament—(cheers)—which they
have a right to do as fairly and as undoubtedly as the peers
have a right to sit in the House of Lords. (Rear, hear.)
This is a fundamental principle of the English Constitu-
tion, and I can tell this great and influential meeting that
the struggle on my part to obtain that right for the people
shall never be abandoned until it has been attained with
complete success. (The hon. gentleman then resumeklus
seat amidst loud cheers.)
A vote of thanks .was then cordially given to Messrs.
Scholefield and Brigh, and a petition to Par hoceedings
srminated. amen in
__e_._,
favour of Reform havting been adopted, the pr

[AnvErmsEstENT.]--Mr. Benson, Ludgate-hill, has just
published anew illustrated pamphlet on watches (iree by post
for two stamps). It should be read by all who are about
buying a watch, as it contains prices and important informa-
tion as to—What watch to buy ! where to buy it 1 and how to
use it